Like Mother Like Daughter
by GallifreyanMaiden
Summary: Evelyn has never wanted to be like her mother, but on the worst night of her life a man comes into it and makes her see that maybe she is more like her mother than she thought and prehaps thats not such a bad thing. Ten/Donna EDITED!
1. Smudged Eyeliner Stained Prom Dress

Disclaimer- I own nothing except Evelyn

…

My forest green evening gown still had a dark stain on it from where I had spilled my first cup of crappy, high school dance punch.

My eyes still had a slightly vindictive gleam in them because the second cup had hit him square in the face.

Nothing was really coming through…all I knew was that I was mad…no I was more than mad I was _pissed_. What, was I aiming _too goddamned high _with looking for adate with some tact? Perhaps I should have gone for simply a carbon-based life form, would _that_ have provided a sufficiently wide category to produce a commitment _to a single night_?

…

But I digress, it all started one afternoon between classes at West Phillipsville High School, it was a decent day; mid-May, finals and prom were around the corner. Now, I'm not about to give any bullshit and say that I could have cared less about prom and that it's only for chauvinists and subservient females stuck in 1950, I was actually quite excited for it, I'd even bothered to get a date.

John Green was a nice enough guy, smart, kinda' funny, prompt and a fairly nice kisser; by the book, not sloppy (from what I remembered from a slightly rigged game of spin the bottle freshman year) and I'd always had a bit of a crush on him. However, John was a cripplingly shy guy as well, so no matter the fact that he was a perfectly respectable date, his dance card was still empty for prom; thus giving me the perfect opportunity to ask him myself.

Needless to say he said yes (I am not being vain here; I think he was just desperate for a date). We then did some startlingly normal things: we rented a house with about fifteen other people near the beach for prom weekend, we divided the cost for a group limo, we set up a time for him to pick me up and take me to the pre-prom party at a mutual friend's house. To my surprise everything went according to plan.

I knew life couldn't continue to go this well.

Let me backtrack for just a minute and explain something to you; things do not go smoothly for me, it's a law of nature or something _'Things may never go correctly for Evelyn Russell' _I swear to God it must be written in stone somewhere right next to Newton's laws of motion. I once called the cops on the exterminator because I thought he was trying to break into my house, I've had my tonsils removed on my birthday, I broke my arm 2 days before the end of Christmas break and 9 days before I got out of gym for health class. _Nothing I do will ever go as planned_.

So when everything went well leading up to prom I was worried. I didn't need the backup dress in my closet because I my gown didn't rip or get grape juice spilled on it. Nor did I need my backup heels because my first ones didn't snap when I was walking down the stairs. The limo didn't break down, the check for the house went through and I didn't come down with a stomach virus, I was worried 'Oh no,' I thought, 'something _worse_ is going to happen.'.

It was then that I made my first mistake.

I was optimistic.

Such thoughts included 'Maybe your luck is finally turning around Ev' and 'Pessimism will just be a self-fulfilling prophesy'

I think I've been watching too much Oprah

Anyway, as everything continued to go off without a hitch, more of that damned optimism pushed away my standard tentativeness and I threw myself into the silly fun. I didn't think anything of Dolly Edwards being there, and I most definitely didn't notice the game of footsie going on beneath the table that was getting slowly dirtier by the minute.

Dolly Edwards had just moved up from Kentucky this past fall, she was the classic southern belle, blonde, blue-eyed and petite and preferred to flit around with a string of boyfriends in the stead of just a single guy, because she could really. Sweet as honey as well, sickening really…

Basically everything I'm not.

So of course when I was on my way to get some fresh air during the dance imagine my surprise when I found her moaning while _my date_ was grunting with the pleasure of thrusting himself into her.

I decided that my firs response of dropping my punch on myself was far too understated and not quite the bang that I would have liked, I mean really, they didn't notice me at all.

So, no, I don't think that my response of _calmly_ going back inside to refill my punch and toss it at him to make sure he was aware of my presence this time was unreasonable at all.

…

So now I'm outside my house and mad as hell because apparently no one can be bothered to answer the door. Just my luck, I've just had the worst night of my life and what do I have to show for it? Smudged eyeliner and a stained prom dress.

…

Authors Note- Alright, this is my first foray into the Whoniverse (but thankfully not fanfiction) and I just wanted to test the waters with this chapter…I promise that it gets more Who-filled soon! Thank-you and please review


	2. But Which Donna is Donna?

Authors Note- I forgot to mention, Chapter One takes place on May 30th 2028

_-The TARDIS, going to Earth on February 20__th__ 2010- _

The Doctor was completely and utterly smashed. Today he'd gone through 10 banana daiquiris, 6 hypervodka shots and one box of red wine, to be exact.

Time Lords have excellent liver function, for your information.

So it was somewhat understandable (but not necessarily excusable) that he had done something so incredibly and amazingly idiotic, thoughtless and stupid.

He'd managed to go to a time about a year after he left Donna.

In his drunken state he'd managed to delude himself into thinking that he could just watch her from the side, to only see how she faired without any memory of him, of time and space flowing fluidly through her brain, of being the Doctor-Donna, the most important woman of all time.

He'd vaguely wondered over the ensuing months whether being half Time Lord had affected her at all…of course she would have barely any mental side affects, she might be a bit cleverer, but nothing more, he'd seen to that.

Unfortunately, there was no way to _completely_ wipe her Time Lord mind. He had removed any vestige of their time together, any memory, any feeling, anything that could awaken that great and terrible knowledge dormant in her head, so beautiful and awful that her all too human brain couldn't take the strain. Yes, better to have her be so much less then to have her be so much more for all too short a time.

His wonderful, glorious Donna had died that day.

But it would be nice…to see her face, to hear her laugh, and her yell, _to watch her be alive_.

Whenever he drank that question always popped into his mind he always racked his mind endlessly. _What could I have done? To keep her here? To not have lost her like Rose, like Jenny, like so many others… _

If he had been in love with Donna like he had been with Rose it might have been easier…but that was the problem, he didn't love Donna, not like that. She was like his best friend, almost like a sister who was constantly putting him in his place. It was so refreshing to travel with Donna, their relationship wasn't fraught or complicated the way it had been with Martha or (let's be honest) Rose. She was just his friend…and he found that was what he needed all the time, a friend who was sometimes just as dependant on him as he was on her.

He'd never thought that losing that friend in such a final manner could destroy him so completely.

_-London, England, Earth, February 20__th__ 2010-_

In theory, Donna Noble should have been happy. She had a new boyfriend whom she had met working at some medical offices in London. He was a surgeon, young and promising and he was completely infatuated with her.

In theory, Ms. Noble should have been quite happy indeed.

The only problem was that she wasn't.

Donna was _bored_. She was young enough (or at least could pass for it), and quite good-looking if she did say so herself. So naturally, she wanted to enjoy the entertainments that were meant for the young and good-looking, or at the very least, brazenly confident.

However, you see, the problem lied in that Ms. Noble was seeing the theoretically perfect Dr. Daniel Russell.

The problem was that Daniel, however attractive on paper, had a very strict formula for dates that went like this: Dinner at a lovely restaurant followed by a stroll through the park and being walked to the door for a peck on the lips.

This was all flattering and very romantic _the first three times_. By this point (3 months later) Donna suspected that the 'perfect' doctor was not quite so incredibly proficient after all.

Not to mention the fact that dating a doctor was far from all that it was cracked up to be; his schedule was incredibly sporadic, she always felt that ever so predictable date would have been a tad bit more romantic after only one cancellation or (God forbid) without a single pager interruption.

She sighed when his number came up on her caller id just after she had finished her hair, she could already hear the rushed apology and the cancellation.

After Donna hung up her phone and began to undo her hair she considered quitting her job as a temp and considered a career as a phone phycic.

Just as she finished undoing her hair Donna got a text from her friend Nerys, inviting her on a girl's night out to a hot new club in the city. Donna spared a glance at her sweats drawer and was just about to reply with a quick 'no' when she saw herself in the mirror, she wondered what had happened to the woman of only a few months before who would have jumped at the chance to go to one of a hottest spots in London. That Donna wouldn't be deterred by a boyfriend canceling on her, and she sorely missed that old Donna and intensely wanted to get her back. She grabbed her phone with a newfound vigor and promptly shot off an enthusiastic 'yes' while her eyes traveled past her sweats drawer and lifted to the one that contained a pair of tight black jeans…


	3. Reckless and Impulsive Behavior

Authors Note- I don't know whether the conversation between Donna and Nerys is drunk-speak or the way I interpret Catherine Tate-Chiswick-speak …interpret it in whatever way you find the least offensive…

_-London, England, Earth, February 20th 2010-_

A small group of about five women were giggling girlishly and rather drunkenly after yet another round of margaritas. Tonight the lone redhead in particular wasn't worrying about the disapproving look she'd get from her boyfriend for getting in later than him for once nor about the wicked hangover she would most surely suffer from in the morning. No, tonight she was going to reclaim herself and her freedom his suffocating conservative ideals, she thought viciously as she took another sip. It was really amazing how the alcohol made everything that had been wrapped in indecision startlingly clear to her. She wasn't happy with Daniel, no matter how many times her mother or her coworkers or her friends professed that she was astoundingly lucky or that they were green with envy, she just wasn't happy with the supposedly perfect man, because he wasn't _her_ perfect man.

'_That's it,' _she decided with finality, _'tomorrow I tell him I'm leaving' _

She supposed she had always known, in a way. Like how she had only moved in with him because she had felt that there would be some inherently wrong in not agreeing to enter a serious relationship with the personification of what her mother had touted as the ideal man to her for years. But there was this niggling sense in the back of her mind, a constant reminder of the fact that she felt no passion for this man at all, and if any not nearly enough to enter a serious relationship with him. She wasn't going to ignore that voice anymore, she was going to leave Daniel and that was that.

Yes, Donna was a new woman, and if there was one thing new-old Donna wasn't going to do, it was dwell on a relationship that wasn't meant to be in the first place. In fact, she had made her decision and she wasn't going to hold herself to something that was making her miserable anymore.

Donna grabbed Nerys and pulled her up, "Come on, Ner, les go see who can ge' the mos' phone numbers, like we use' ta."

Nerys looked a little perplexed, as anyone would when her best friend who was dating a doctor would, "But aren' 'cha datin' tha' gorgeous Doctor Russell?". Truthfully Nerys was hoping that it was over between the two, it was idyllic and nice, she supposed, but then again it had never really felt _right _between the two…and then there was the fact that she was bloody _jealous_…yeah, there was always that…

But she didn't really want to process it any more so she just decided to accept it, "Alrigh' then luv, glad to have ya back."

So there Nerys and Donna decided to do what rather drunken women do best; shamelessly hit upon equally drunken men.

Donna cast an eye turned expert through years of experience thought the club of beautiful men; all either darkly appealing or muscled or glamorous or artsy or intelligent or worldly looking, but their one shared quality was a certain level of devil-may-care spontaneity to them that she could help but realize Daniel was desperately lacking in. Her eyes glazed over the bar area looking over the assembly of prime man but not seeing one precisely to her liking. Then she spotted him; his messy brown hair flopped over his eyes in a way that accentuated the brooding personality which seemed to tell others to back off but screamed for her to come closer, his chic-geek pinstriped suit and a skinny tie that distinguished him from the rest of the crowd and most of all, his deep chocolate brown eyes that seemed to be watching her just as intently as she watched him. He surpassed all of the other men in the crowded club, and for the first time in a long time Donna felt her pulse quicken and her oh-too-long dormant sexuality give a long aching throb.

So she did what any drunken and horny woman with any sense would do; she went over to him.

It was strange, though, as she got closer he seemed paralyzed like good sense was telling him to get the hell out but he was just _frozen_ on the spot. But Donna wasn't going to let a little thing like trepidation on the behalf of the other party stop her. No, she was going to fulfill this strange and undeniable attraction to this man, no matter how ood he seemed initially.

"Ello, Donna Noble," she said rather pleasantly, her four margarita dinner giving her a wonderfully warm feeling, not to mention a lovely level of liquid courage, "tell me now, was' a good lookin' bloke like you doin' in a place like this all by your lonesome?" all said with an easy and disarming smile.

He looked oddly shocked for a moment and the indecision that she had seen on his face earlier intensified for a moment and then seemed to make a decision, "Well, I'm a bit of a loner myself, but we'd best stop talking soon, I'm sure your boyfriend will show up any minute wanting to pummel me for stealing away your attentions. John Smith, by the way."

Inside, Donna Noble smiled, he was probing, and none too artfully too, and she knew that he was interested, she smiled involuntarily as she said "Naw, none for me, I'm here with my mates"

He was dashing when he looked confused, but really, he was a bit strange, she had just told him that she didn't have a boyfriend and he looked _concerned_. Odd man.

"But, pretty girl like you, must have blokes bangin' down the door."

Oh, he was so hitting on her, she giggled to herself "Hardly, mate. So since we're both single an' alone, would you perhaps like to join me for a drink so that we can be single an' alone together?"

Damn it, he looked dead frightened now, "No, no, look, I'd best be going…"

He wasn't getting away that easily, "Oh, come on, don' hurt my feelings, be polite, hav' a drink, my treat" she said batting her eyelashes.

"Well, alright, maybe just one drink"

…

Three hours and many drinks later it was last call, Donna's friends had gone home and she had insisted that she would take a cab when she was good and ready. Donna and john were both giggling furtively at something one or the other had said and were getting ready to leave the club.

John smiled at Donna and said out of the blue, "Donna you are _really_ beautiful…I mean more than beautiful…absolutely ravishing…"

Well, that sealed the deal, she could count on one hand the number of times Daniel had told her she was beautiful, "Ya...ya…ya know, John, you are the _best_…no, no, really, you are the _best_…I love you…" Donna slurred out as she landed a sloppy kiss on his lips with an innately satisfied smile.

John giggled to himself and said "Ya know what we should do? We should have _sex_" he whispered the last word in a way that only makes sense when you're drunk.

"Ooh," said Donna excitedly (she would later think back on this and wryly mutter that the excitement was well deserved, she hadn't had sex in four months) "we _should_, but _where_?" she queried.

He giggled again, "Okay, this is great, this is-this is really, _really_ great," he whispered again, "_we should have sex in the park_"

She laughed again at the ridiculousness of it, "I haven't done that in _ages_" she said through the laughter.

…

So that's how John Smith and Donna Noble ended up half-naked in a bush in the middle of the park at two in the morning.

Later when Daniel would ask how Donna had gotten all of those scratches on her arms she would claim that it was Nerys's cat.

…

Authors Note- Okay, I was going publish this in conjunction with the Doctor's side of the story but it was already three pages long and I think that the Doctor's portion would be better-off published as a separate chapter.

And before anyone yells at me NO I DON'T THINK THAT DONNA'S A WHORE…I actually like her more than any other companion the Doctor's ever had, I just think that she was wiped of the person she was when she was wiped of her time lord mind, and the person that she was before she met the Doctor was a lot more self-centered and less understanding than who she became after traveling with the Doctor. Donna grew up a lot in her time with the Doctor and now she needs to try to reach that same level in a different way.


	4. Coming Up Blank

A/N- Alright, I'm not exactly happy with some bits of this chapter, but it's a necessary juncture and I wanted to get it up before I go spend a week doing nothing but reading school stuff, because I'll completely lose what I wanted from this in the first place.

Oh, and just so you know how drunk the Doctor was, when a Time Lord is buzzed, a human would be smashed, and when a Time Lord is smashed, a human would be dead of alcohol poisoning. If you're wondering how I'm justifying this, Time Lords have two circulatory systems, so, in my Whoniverse, it takes roughly twice as much alcohol for a Time Lord to become inebriated as it does for a human.

Oh, and for the Doctor's age, I guessed.

_-London, England, Earth, February 20th 2010-_

It was near ten o'clock at night in the middle of a busy London street, cars whizzed by one another in a chaotic yet near musical whirr, every person was focused on his own plans or destination. Every person was so wrapped up in his own little world that not one noticed a light whooshing adding to the city's familiar symphony nor the blue police box which appeared in a near by alleyway.

The Doctor got out of the TARDIS rather steadily for the amount he had been drinking…right now, if for no other reason, he loved being a time lord for only his ability to hold his liquor to an astronomical extent.

The Doctor looked down at his discreetly disguised sonic screwdriver; he had it tracking Donna Noble. Both of his hearts skipped a beat at the thought of seeing her, of course he had to remind himself that he couldn't talk to her or draw attention to himself at all, but, oh, it would be lovely just to see her and imagine that she was still _his_.

Fifteen minutes later, he found himself standing in line at a busy club and his initial excitement waned to apprehension with the slightest hint of fear as he flashed the psychic paper at the bouncer near the door who granted him access. He honestly had no idea what it had said but whatever it was had worked, he looked down at the piece of paper and snorted, it was, of course, blank. It was poetically just, in a way; he had caused something, and when he wanted to know just _what_ he had caused, he came up blank.

He went in and made his way over to the bar, taking one of the many open seats, as nearly every other body in the place was either up mingling or at one of the booths with a group of mates. Her group was giggling into their margaritas, he vaguely wondered what they were going on about. But he was soon enough distracted by the fact that, Rassilon, Omega and the Other, must have looked sad, he thought in a wry way, the depressed drunk sticking out like a sore thumb in a place filled to the brim with people who were happy and jubilant over their own, mundane little triumphs. Then again maybe he didn't just _look_ the part of the bitter, drunken loner…

Sighing he waved over the bartender, ordered a shot of scotch and downed it in one go. After all, as long as he looked like a drunken sad sack he might as well play the part well.

So that was how the Doctor planned to spend his evening, drinking alone and watching a lone woman, a single firey redhead who could never know of his existence.

…

'Oh crap…oh crap, oh crap, oh crap' the doctor thought vehemently as Donna began to walk his way, he had been watching her but he hoped she hadn't noticed, didn't want her to think he was _interested_.

Oh, good Rassilon, he wanted to leave, but he just _couldn't_, he looked at that and face he just felt right and damn it he didn't want to go.

After all, he rationalized to himself, at this point running for the TARDIS would just draw attention to him for acting strangely and then she might dwell on him and then…well, he just thought that it would be best to stay here and to extract himself as soon as it wouldn't seem odd.

"Ello, Donna Noble," oh, Rassilon, she was she _drunk_? "tell me now, was' a good lookin' bloke like you doin' in a place like this all by your lonesome?" oh, she was _so_ drunk. Oh, oh, dear was he supposed to answer?

"Well, I'm a bit of a loner myself, but we'd best stop talking soon, I'm sure your boyfriend will show up any minute wanting to pummel me for stealing away your attentions," yes, that's it just get her away just _get her away_…why is she looking at me like that, all expectantly? Oh, damn, a name, a name, I need a name! Might as well just use the standard, "John Smith, by the way."

"Naw, none for me, I'm here with my mates" What? What? _What_? She was supposed to be _happy_! That's why he'd wiped her mind! That's why he'd _erased_ his best friend from _existence_…No she _had_ to have a bloke…it was just so…un-Donna…

"But, pretty girl like you, must have blokes bangin' down the door." He said with what he hoped was a calm smile (later he would smack himself for this, Omega, she must have thought he was hitting on her). When she smiled he was so happy, just incandescent with joy, he'd missed that megawatt smile, it had been like a diamond in the coal when she was shouting at him all the time.

"Hardly, mate. So since we're both single an' alone, would you perhaps like to join me for a drink so that we can be single an' alone together?" He frowned at the first part. Was she just being modest? Couldn't she see what a gem she was? She was so _strong_, so _sure_, she was simply one in a million. When he at first hurriedly declined her offer for a drink he saw her face fall a little. That really made him feel awful. He honestly didn't even care that she offered to pay; he just wanted to see that smile one last time, to leave her on more pleasant terms.

"Well, alright, maybe just one drink…"

…

Three hours later, he looked at Donna over his scotch, she really was lovely…brilliant…gorgeous…and quite hilarious to boot he mused as he giggled at another story. Her mates had left long ago and, to be frank, he was glad they had, he would _much_ rather have this redheaded firecracker to himself, thank you very much.

She looked around and realized the club was closing and giggled, he didn't know at what, but it hardly mattered, she had a wonderful laugh…wow, she was happy, he liked it when she was happy…

"Donna you are _really_ beautiful…I mean more than beautiful…absolutely ravishing…" he said with a large smile plastered across his face.

"Ya...ya…ya know, John, you are the _best_…no, no, really, you are the _best_…I love you…" she said happily. She giggled again and kissed him on the lips, the kiss deepned a bit before he got one of the most brilliant ideas he had ever gotten in his 960 years, and with him being, well, let's face it, a bloody genius, that was saying something.

"Ya know what we should do? We should have _sex_" he whispered the last part in such a way that it sent an intense and near forgotten thrill though him.

He watched with that same grin on his face as Donna's slowly formed into an excited 'oh', "Ooh, we _should_, but _where_?" she asked with a drunken curiosity.

A brilliant idea sprang forth in his mind with such force that he could only compare it with the likes of the Nuladees of the stories of his childhood. He gave Donna the particularly triumphant smile that he had always given her whenever he was being 'cocky' as she had put it which would have always earned him a smack. He had a moment of sadness so fleeting that only a Time Lord would have noticed it, but he quickly regained his brilliant idea and whispered to her, "Okay, this is great, this is-this is really, _really_ great," he smiled even wider, "_we should have sex in the park_"

The glee in her face was so great, so unmistakable, that he didn't even feel guilty at the thought that _his_ Donna would have most certainly slapped him silly for even suggesting sex, let alone 2 am sex in the bushes like to overly hormonal teenagers. _This_ woman seemed to think nothing more appealing than that same activity that would have made her lost self heave with disgust…

And he was _happy_ about it.

He hadn't been with anyone like this since Rose, and she reminded him of Rose so much…her fire, her curiosity, her bravery…her promise of forever…

His heart melted as she laughed, that beautiful, rich, tinkling laugh and told him, "I haven't done that in _ages_".

She wanted him and he wanted her in more ways than he could ever tell her…and at that moment that was all that mattered…

…

The next morning the Doctor was sitting in the TARDIS's kitchen with a hot mug of tea and an ice pack to his throbbing head, it was times like these that he cursed the fact that aspirin was like poison to Gallifreyans. Quite frankly, he felt it was quite lucky that he had even made it back to the TARDIS at all.

But through the hangover he felt an empty ache that no amount of aspirin or tea or ice or alcohol or love or hate could ever cure, could ever fill. He felt the ache of taking advantage of a friend. True, they were both so boozed up that it was a miracle that they could walk, let alone have sex, but still, he wasn't just some horny human looking for a one night stand! He was a Time Lord and he should have known better, he had wiped her memory for a reason and he could have jeopardized her life.

The Doctor downed his tea in one go, closed his eyes and tilted back his head. He felt a single tear fall down his cheek and then multiply to and unending salty river running down his face. Rassilon, why was he such a fuck up? He couldn't save the Time Lords, Ardic, Jenny, River…he couldn't keep Rose or Donna…

He smiled bitterly, Martha, Sarah Jane, Nyssa and the others like them were the lucky ones really. The ones who got away or got left behind before they were too traumatized like Teagan or died in an exercise of futility like Adric and Jenny. He smiled bitterly again, yes, yes, much better off.

…

A/N- Alrighty, so I'm kind of pissed at myself because I forgot to add Donna's 'morning after' to her chapter, so that'll be the next chapter…was the Doctor's too heavy? I just felt that those were issues that were a major part of the Doctor as a person and he has never dealt with properly as he only really opened the wound at the end of Journey's End. So I decided to have him really start mourn here for the fact that everyone he touches seems to die, at least from where he's standing.

For those of you waiting for a new chapter about Ev, don't worry, I've been reworking the old chapter two to fit in with what I want to do, it'll probably be chapter 6.


	5. A Simple Matter of Guilt

A/N- Okay, Donna's morning after, as promised, Ev'll be up next

A/N- Okay, Donna's morning after, as promised, Ev'll be up next!

_-London, England, Earth, February 21st 2010-_

It was eleven o'clock on a lovely Saturday morning in February and most of the London population was going about its mundane life, either catching up on the weeks missed sleep or enjoying the unusually lovely weather. In a particular sleek flat near the hospital, one Donna Noble put on the kettle for tea and downed three aspirin in one go. She sighed in a slightly irritated manner as the tea seemed to want the next millennia to come to a boil, the lights seemed too bright and the normally soft buzz of the street below seemed to be at a fever pitch. The kettle finally came to a boil with an ear-splitting whistle that she stopped with an incredible amount of speed.

She was officially never even looking at alcohol again.

She grabbed her favorite gigantic hot pink mug from the ebony cupboard above her head, it stuck out like a sore thumb amongst its uniformly white, standard sized neighbors that belonged to Daniel. She just realized how much she hated this place, the matched cups and saucers and plates and mugs and cutlery, the lack or serendipity to it that you would find in any other home. The whole kitchen looked like it came out of a catalogue in the worst way; all white and black and stainless steel. The fact that he hadn't ever broken enough plates by accident or even in a fight were a testament to how infrequently he even used the space, she could swear that here had been a layer of dust over the stove when she'd moved in.

The rest of the house was the same, not so much minimalist as minimally used. Not a thing to show a hobby or an interest, like the flat had been staged for a real estate agent to show potential buyers about. Donna sighed; she poured her tea into her misfit mug and while she waited for it to steep went to the fridge for a banana.

It was strange, she'd had the oddest craving for bananas for about a year, ever since that 'alien attack' she'd apparently slept through (she must have been to a great party the night before, the less you could remember, the better it was). But her friends trying to get her to even remember some of it the entire year (they were adamant that one could not 'just be sleeping it off' for 48 hours and that she couldn't have missed everything that had apparently happened in the past year besides) must have finally had some kind of affect on her, because last night she'd had the strangest dream…

_She'd had been watching herself…Lord, she had been so different, well, she hadn't looked that much different, but there had been some intangible quality about her…something like courage and determination…_

_Dream-Donna, the woman with that quality, had flashed some sort of badge to a bloke who looked like the generic rent-a-cop who every company or business she temped for inevitably had._

_The rest of the dream passed by so fast that it felt like not a minute ago she had been watching Dream-Donna enter the building. Images flashed past of a platinum blonde woman with her hair in a chignon, little waddling marshmallows with arms and legs and faces, the blonde woman attacking them with a pen, of all things, the blonde woman falling to her death…_

_And a man…_

_A man with unruly brown hair in a brown pinstriped suit and eager dark brown eyes…_

Oh God…

John Smith.

Last night.

Donna left her half-finished banana and tea and ran to the bathroom to throw up the meager contents of her stomach. Why, why did he of all people have to ingrain himself into her mind so much that he appeared in her dreams?

…

An hour later Donna was still sitting with her tea and banana. The tea had gone cold and the banana had gone brown.

_What is WRONG with me?_ Donna kept asking herself.

And an irritating little voice in the back of her head kept answering _You're unhappy!_

She couldn't be unhappy! She was living with a doctor for Christ's sakes! _Everyone_ she knew wanted to live with a doctor!

But, she realized as she numbly threw away her banana and emptied her cup of tea into the sink, she wasn't happy. She supposed that she was daft. She supposed there were plenty of women who could satisfy themselves in a relationship with a completely indifferent partner who thought he was attentive. She suppose there were plenty of women who would be grateful for a relationship like that she could only compare to having a particularly busy and dull roommate. Most women could be indefinitely happy with a vibrator or their shower head.

There was no issue there.

The issue was that she couldn't satisfy herself with it.

That she thought there had to be more.

And that vibrator routine was getting old fast.

And that she had this inexplicable conviction that the man with whom she had had a one night stand with last night shared more with her than she had shared with five months with Daniel.

She wanted to leave him.

And she was solid in that conviction until about half an hour later when Daniel came home.

She stood up with as much conviction as a woman in only a white terrycloth bathrobe and slippers could muster.

"Da-" was as far as she got before she got before she was swept up in the most passionate kiss of their relationship.

But she couldn't help but compare it to the many, many kisses that she had shared with John Smith the night prior.

"I lost a patient today," he said as he came up for air, "Her husband," he kissed her again, I "was so sad," again, "and I just," again, "couldn't help but compare," yet again, "them to us."

Oh, god, she was confused. _What_ was this leading up to?

"And?" she asked holding him back with her hand.

"Do you know what he told me Donna? He told me 'My only regret was that I didn't marry that woman sooner'. Donna, they loved each other, and, well, _I_ want that. I want to wake up every morning and say 'Wow, that's my wife'. I want to know that I didn't waste any time. Donna Noble, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met, you're witty, clever and self-aware-"

She nearly snorted, if she was so 'self-aware' then why was she standing here right now?

"-beautiful…So what I guess I'm trying to say is, Donna Noble, will you marry me?" he said with a perfect smile.

…

Most women would have cried.

Most women would still be saying 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'.

Most women would have called their mums right now and have been screaming with glee.

Donna Noble was not most women.

She froze.

Just stood there, possibly (quite probably) with a bit of drool coming out of the corner of her mouth.

She was completely and utterly in shock, honestly, she just had _no idea_ what to do.

On the one hand she did not want to spend her life with this man…

On the other she didn't want to be the bitch who said no to a man who had just seen a woman die.

She had never expected life to be this fucking hard.

"Donna? Are you all right, love?"

"Y-yes"

What had she just _said_?

"To what love, to what?" Oh, lord, he looked so eager…saying no would be like kicking a puppy…

"Err…well, I…umm…yes, yes Daniel I will marry you."

_What the hell_ had she just done?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Dan's happy laughter as he lifted her up and spun her about the room.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

_Why_ had she said yes?

She supposed that it was just a simple matter of guilt, really/

…

A/N- Ooh…I have the oddest feeling that some of you are going to hate me for this…


	6. Positively Positive

A/N- I know that I said Ev would be up next, but I just needed to give you this one more back chapter…she'll be chapter seven, I promise!

_-London, England, Earth, March 29__th__ 2010-_

Throughout their lives, women have similar experiences of mingled nervousness, joy, fear and apprehension. Of course they may differ slightly, one emotion may overpower the others to the point where it seems to be the only one, but they are all essentially the same.

In the Tower of London a blushing teenager experienced the joy of first love and the mixed thrill and apprehension of getting caught as she and her fumbling boyfriend began innocently fooling around in a secluded alcove a corridor away from the rest of the school group.

In Hyde Park a woman was shaking with glee as her boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed to her with her favorite white roses in front of the Artemis fountain.

At a non-descript shopping center in the center of London an 18 year-old woman buzzed with nerves as she went in to apply for her first real job.

Donna Noble had experienced all of these things at one time or another, all giving her such a rise of feeling that she believed that nothing else could make her feel stronger.

She was wrong.

As it turned out, none of these could inspire the indecipherable stream of emotion that flowed through her as she looked down at that little pink plus sign.

…

_-Earlier that day-_

Donna Noble was throwing up for the fifth time that week, the second time that day- and it was only Wednesday.

It was no wonder, really. She had just agreed to marry a man who she couldn't love less and the stress was killing her. She could barely eat and her sleeping was spotty at best…the stress was even affecting her period, she was five days late.

She decided to ask Daniel what to do about it later.

…

Later that day, Daniel came back from an emergency call that he'd gotten earlier that morning, she wasn't quite sure what it had been about, but she thought she'd heard him mutter about 'moronic interns that can't read clear notes' as he'd thrown on his coat and left the flat.

He'd come in with his lightish blonde hair slightly askew and the perpetual dark circles under his eyes a fraction darker than usual.

"Err…dear? D' ya have a mo'?" she asked a bit nervously. She didn't like talking to him much now, every time she looked at him she felt this unbearable twinge of guilt that just made her want to throw up again. The way that his face brightened when she talked to him just made her even sicker.

"For you love? Of course," he said with a smile that she supposed was supposed to be rakish but just came off as a grimace.

"Well…one of my girlfriends," she said quickly, "she is _very_ stress, new boss, big jerk, and she is always throwing up, dosen't want to eat and can't sleep, she's missing her period too, she wanted me to ask you what to do," she said, mentally wincing at the utter lameness of her pretense.

His eyebrows knitted together in a curious way, after all, it was just stress, "Your friend," he said slowly, "She wouldn't have happened to have had sex in the past couple of months, would she?"

Now her eyebrows were knitted together. Why was this important? Oh, she hoped it wasn't an STD…

"Yeah, why?"

He looked sardonically mirthful, "I'd tell your friend to go to her gynocologist, she's probably pregnant."

He kissed her on the cheek as he went into the bedroom to sleep for a bit before he had to go back to the hospital. As soon as she was sure he was dead asleep, she ran down to the corner store and grabbed the first pregnancy test she could get her hands on.

…

Daniel was at the hospital for his actual shift and Donna had summoned enough strength to move from the bathroom to the living room couch. She still clutched the tiny white stick in a vice grip, the tiny pink plus sign blaring out like a beacon from hell to simply complicate her life even more...she snorted, whoever said that being positive was a good thing?

Oh, God…

Who was the father?

…

A/N- hides from the imaginary mob Okay, so Ev really is in it next time, I swear! I have to say I think that it could have been better...but I have to say I think this could have been better laughs I'm probably more critical of my fics than most people who read it...


	7. Breakdowns and Blue Boxes

A/N- Second draft! (almost 4 months later) I think that the ending's better now…I watched Moulin Rouge last night and I think I was inspired…

_-Phillipsville, New Jersey, USA, Earth, May 30__th__ 2028-_

At two in the morning, New Jersey suburbs are usually dark, dull places. Shops are closed, cars are rare, and the streets are only lighted by the ghostly, humming glow of the occasional lone street lamp. No inhabitants roam the streets and rarely does a sound cut though the dead blanket of silence that envelops the sleepy streets lined with rows upon rows of houses with their dark, enigmatic windows.

So therefore, the loud two am banging and soft cursing of one Evelyn Russell was rather out of character for her small New Jersey town.

Although, to be perfectly fair, when locked out of your house, you hardly care about what is socially proper.

Evelyn glared at her keychain that should have held both her house and car keys as if it had done her a great personal wrong. She just _knew_ that she should have gotten her mother to give her back her house key last week.

She heaved yet another irritated sigh as she threw open the door of her light blue, much-abused '01 VW Bug with quite a bit more force than necessary as the car's hinges groaned heavily in protest. She rubbed the dashboard with a weary tenderness and muttered a quiet apology to the car (most people would wonder why she would regularly have conversations with her car…she wondered why others didn't) as she got in and shut the door with a doubled carefulness and jammed the key into the ignition. She had plenty of friends who wondered why she insisted on driving her old, beat-up Bug when she could probably get a car from this decade for quite a bit less, but the truth was that she was really affectionate towards this car that had been with her through hell and high water.

Evelyn let a satisfied smile seep through her generally morose demeanor as the engine of her car roared to life; at least one thing was right with the world. Driving or tuning up her car always calmed her when something happened to throw her. People were never constant, never fixed, but cars, with cars there was always a rhyme, always a reason. What are people anyway? She mused as she cruised aimlessly through the familiar tangle of dark, suburban streets. Nothing but a blink in time, a speck of dust in space, trying to change the universe but having no more effect than a fly attempting to move a mountain. With a life so fleeting remembered for only a moment longer. So enraptured was Evelyn in her own thoughts that she didn't even see the man in the trench coat, just as aimless as she, wandering about and looking at the sky, until it was nearly too late.

…

"Shit!" she screamed as she slammed on the brake with both feet and all the force she could muster. The man ran out of the way and her car shrieked in protest as she swerved to avoid the haphazard stranger.

Her car suddenly sputtered, stopped, moved again for about an inch, sputtered, and stopped again. Evelyn emitted a small squeak of surprise, looked at her dash, looked at the thin, wispy, whitish smoke emitting from her engine and squeaked again. She quickly opened her door and tumbled out of her car to her engine and popped the hood, immediately a great wave of the whitish smoke spewed forth, temporarily blinding her. As she stared open-mouthed at her once perfect car, the moron who had caused her to over tax her car came over and said, "Sorry, sorry, anything I can do to help?"

She turned around and gave him a dangerously sweet smile, "Tell me, sunshine, you wouldn't happen to have a time machine, would you?"

He just continued to look at her quizzically while her dangerous smile simply got wider, "Err…why?"

"Because, I would like you to go back in time and get yourself far, far away from my fucking car you bloody genius!" she screamed at him as she slammed down her hood.

"Err, well, even if I had one I couldn't go back on someone's personal timeline," he quickly added, "Allegedly."

She glared at him as she reopened her hood to look inside, "Well, then make yourself useful and get me my flashlight out of the trunk, I've got to find out what's wrong with her. Who are you, anyway?"

He handed her the flashlight, "The Doctor."

She raised her head from the engine, "Doctor what? Sorry, didn't catch that."

He leaned over her shoulder and followed the beam of her flashlight, "Just the Doctor. Your transmission's shot, you won't be able to repair this until morning," he paused to look at his watch, "Err…well, later this morning at least," he paused to look at her outfit, "Care to explain the outfit?"

She snorted, "Long story."

The Doctor's head bent to the side, "I've got time."

Evelyn didn't know what it was about this skinny man who called himself the Doctor that just made her want to spill her guts, but that indiscernible quality was there none the less and she found herself telling him about the whole awful night. In the back of her mind she berated herself for being so ridiculous; it was just one night, for Christ's sake…one awful, horrendous, miserable night…

He looked at her softly with something in his eyes…not pity…but close enough to pity to piss her off…she didn't need pity, especially the pity of some moron who just ruined her car, the night hadn't been that bad…just embarrassing, humiliating and completely and utterly mollifying…

Just as the awkward silence that inevitably followed a really terrible story began to set in, a cell phone rang, Evelyn's hand automatically went to her side where she usually had her bag o' crap (a.k.a. her purse) but realized too late that she didn't have it. The Doctor pulled out a light gold cell phone, flipped the top and said, "Hello?" he smiled "Martha Milligan! How are you?" He turned to the side to provide himself with some measure of privacy, "Oh…Yes…I see…Of course…I'll be there before you can say TARDIS…And Martha? Take care of yourself,"

"What was that about?" Evelyn asked

"My friend, she's needs my help and…oh, you'd better come with me," he said quickly as he pulled her down the street.

"Whoa there, sunshine, I'm not going anywhere with you!" she said as she pulled away from him. He just rolled his eyes and grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder as she started hitting him against his back.

"You aren't getting home in that old wreck and I'm not just leaving you in the middle of the street at three in the morning."

She glared at his back as she continued to struggle, "First off; my car is not an old wreck, she is vintage, and second; I AM NOT GOING ANYWHRE WITH YOU!!!"

"Would you _please_ stop _wiggling_ so much?" he asked frankly.

"No," she replied sullenly.

"Fine. Here we are."

She stopped her wiggling long enough to twist to see a blue box sitting on a corner, "Where is here?"

He fiddled with the lock a bit, said, "Here," and set her down.

She turned to glare at him, "That still doesn't answer my…" she trailed off as a quiet 'Wow' escaped from her smudged and shimmery lips and her eyes went wide as the proverbial saucers. The jackass man who called himself 'The Doctor' leaned against the door to the…the…well, she didn't precisely know _what _it was.

"Wha-Where are we?" she said in that same voice of hushed awe, as if she was afraid that if her voice got too loud that the illusion would shatter and she would be back in her driveway, still locked out of her house, dumped on prom night.

He gave that same self-assured, cocky smile as before, "Everywhere and nowhere, heaven and hell, in time and space yet fixed in no place,"

"Am I ever going to get a straight answer out of you?" she muttered in a slightly rueful voice, almost affectionate comparatively to her banshee-like screams from only moments prior.

"Nope," he said with an almost childish smile.

"I didn't think so," she sighed, "It's bigger on the inside," she noted in a completely observational tone, a tad belatedly.

"That's what they all say," he said with that same smirk still plastered upon his face, "Now, go change," he said in a completely sensible voice.

"Why?" she said, even as she caught a railing for support as she teetered in her gold stilettos.

"Well, we can't have you running about Cardiff in that, can we?" he said with a shake of his head, "No, you'd stick out like a banana amongst pears…bananas are good…" he noted wistfully as she made a face at the mention of pears, "What?" he looked aghast, "You don't like bananas?"

"No, I love bananas! But pears! Ick!" she said with the same look of disgust.

"Ms. Russell, I do believe that this is the start of a lovely friendship," he said with a huge grin.

"That it is, Doctor, that it is,"

"To the wardrobe, then?" he said as he gallantly stuck out his elbow for her to take. She nodded gamely with a trilling laugh as they both walked down the corridor with the same lilting step.

…

AN- Yay!!! Finally managed to get this out!!! Review and thou shalt receive baked goods!!!


	8. Not So Fictional After All

A/N- Sorry for the long wait! Much thanks and many cookies to everyone who favorite-ed, reviewed, and alerted on the last chapter! You guys rock! So, with no more words and nary a bit more ado I give you 'Not So Fictional After All'.

…

_-Cardiff, Wales, Great Britan, Earth, May 31__st__, 2028-_

The people of Cardiff were buzzing happily about their business. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and everyone was relishing in that lovely languid feeling that Saturday just seemed to ooze with. Everyone was simply suspended in a state of dreaminess that simply went with that single unhurried, dawdling day. The sun buzzed, radiant with energy, as the people of Cardiff soaked up its pleasant warm light, triply appreciated as it was the first truly warm day in months of endlessly dreary, rainy weather. Strangely, on this abnormally fine day not a single one of the many residents of Cardiff who had come out to enjoy this first balmy day even took the slightest notice of the periwinkle blue police box sitting conspicuously in front of a tourist office in the middle of the city.

If anyone had bothered to even give the box a second glance, they may have thought it odd, perhaps a strange relic from the 60's, shrugged and went on their way. After all, it wasn't as if it was behaving in an unusual manner…just standing there, calm and stoic, smack in the middle of Wales.

Inside that very blue box, two people were readying themselves for a battle that very few residents of Cardiff even knew was going on. The young woman, Evelyn, was dressed simply, in a form-fitting sapphire-blue shirt, skinny jeans and black high-tops with a brown leather belt resting around her hips and her mid-length, brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail on her neck. She bit her bottom lip and tugged at her sleeve nervously as she watched the Doctor walk to the door of the ship and let in the streams of natural light from the bright Cardiff day. She followed the Doctor through the portal, back to the real world, away from the oscillating console and the bluish light of his…damn; she still didn't know what it was, did she?

Oh, well, now was hardly the time to ask, she thought as they made their way towards a crowded plaza. Evelyn found herself unconsciously moving closer to the Doctor as she began to train her gaze on his billowing brown trench coat. She watched and followed him as closely as she could without becoming an impediment, so she was more than shocked when he simply disappeared from where he had been striding only a moment before. Her pulse and pace simultaneously began to quicken and her eyes widened a fraction as she instinctively went to the spot where she had seen him vanish from. She had retained her sense of self-preservation enough to know to remain inconspicuous until either the Doctor reemerged or she figured out her nest step. She turned her body slightly to the left to make it appear as if she was gazing at the fountain; she was close enough so that it didn't look suspicious and so that she wasn't getting in people's way, anyway.

Oh, God, she was fucked, she muttered to herself in her head as she looked passively at the rainbows reflecting off the cascading fountain and she went over the facts in her head. First off; she had nothing. No purse, no money, no drivers license, no ID, no passport, not even in the proper time period from what she could gather (only by about a day, but it was still an issue). So going to the cops for help was definitely not an option; they'd probably just assume that she was an illegal at best and ship her back to the States, or at worst they'd decide she was crazy and throw her in a sanitarium. And standing in front of this fountain all day probably wasn't best either, some one would notice her not moving eventually and call the police and that would just bring about more of the same. She might be able to go back to the…damn, _what_ in the hell _was_ it…but the Doctor had probably locked it (whatever it was), so in all likelihood she wouldn't be able to get back in and that would incur much the same result as standing here all day…which brought her back to square one.

Men suck.

Her lips pressed together into a pair of thin, white lines and screwed up and off to the side while her nose scrunched up in irritation. The world continued to whirl by her as she stood stock still and thought about how wonderful it would be to scream bloody murder at that asinine man the moment he decided to reappear.

Those were her last thoughts as she fell through the seemingly solid ground and her feet hit the floor of some kind of subterranean headquarters and she (rather embarrassingly) lost her footing on the perfectly level floor. As she got up off the floor and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes in annoyance, she looked up to a rather infuriating sight: the Doctor sheepishly grinning and looking like he was trying to become as small as possible to avoid a smack.

Smart man.

"Um…err…sorry, Evelyn…we, err, had to key you into the lift and we…well, we had no idea that you'd be standing right on top of it…" said the Doctor in an almost painful attempt to get her laser-like glare to lessen.

As she looked away in disgust, her gaze fell upon the only other person in the room, a guy who appeared to be in his early to mid-twenties not even bothering to hide his light laughter, so she responded in what she believed would really be only appropriate response.

"Hey, pretty boy, shove it up your ass before I have to do it for you."

She was disappointed when this only seemed to cause him more delight.

"Got yourself a firey one this time, don't ya, Doctor?" he said as he reached out a hand to help her up, "Hello, Captain Jack Harkness," he said with a devilish smirk.

Before she could respond the Doctor bit off, "Jack! Don't!"

Jack had the courtesy to look offended, "What, Doc? Am I not allowed to just say hello anymore?"

"It's never just hello with you."

"Why Doctor! I am hurt and offended that you know me so well!" he said with the same smirk.

Evelyn turned and gave him a sickly sweet smile, "Evelyn Russell, I'm flattered," she said with a firm shake of the hand, "I'm also seventeen," she added in a whisper as she leaned in close to his ear whilst a huge grin spread across her face as his manly front fell for a moment before he quickly made a sorry attempt at recovery.

"Well…err, right…eh…um…" he said as he swam for words and made plenty of wild hand gestures in a poor attempt to save face. He eventually gave up (much to Evelyn's amusement) and simply gestured for them to follow him down the sloping bridge down to the central area of the place.

As they walked, the Doctor came up behind Evelyn and bent to whisper in her ear, "Good show, I have never seen anyone strike him speechless that fast without knocking him unconscious," he said with a smirk on his face.

"You think that was fast?" she said with a slightly evil smirk of her own, "You should have seen how quickly I shut up the football captain with a few well-placed remarks about steroids, certain parts of his anatomy, and a deep pity for his girlfriend."

The Doctor rolled his eyes as they came to a stop. Jack appeared to have recovered from his former embarrassment enough to manage coherent speech, much to Evelyn's disappointment…she would have loved to seen him flounder for a bit more.

"Welcome to the Hub!" he said with a grandiose sweep of his arm after which he turned to the Doctor with a bit more of a grim face, "Doc, how long has she been on with you? You know better than anyone that I'm not usually so…" a hand gesture, "But do you think that she can handle…" he substituted another hand gesture for words yet again.

"Now wait just a minute!" Evelyn yelled, full of indignant rage, "I _did not _justget dragged out of my own time line and thrown into whatever _the hell_ you two are talking about just to be told to sit back like a good girl and wait for the goddamn, mother-fucking _men_ to take care of things while I lie back and twiddle my fucking thumbs!!! I am in this thing, whatever the hell it is, for the fucking long haul!!!" she finished with an unsettling glare at the two slightly shell-shocked men standing in front of her. She critically looked them over and, satisfied that she had gotten her point across, said, "Now, are we just going to sit here or are you two going to explain what's going on so that I'm not going into this ass-backward?"

The Doctor and Jack gave each other equally blank looks until the Doctor's expression changed to one of darkened determination; he looked Jack straight in the eye and nodded once. Jack retuned the nod in affirmation that he both understood and reaffirmed the Doctor's judgment. The Doctor turned to Evelyn with a serious expression and asked, "Do you mind if I give you the short version?"

She returned his expression with a remarkable clarity and understanding before responding with, "I don't mind so long as the information you supply me with is sufficient."

He nodded deeply and sat himself in a chair before responding, with the others following suit, "Alright. The first thing you should know is what we're up against. Vampires. A whole clan of them," he paused for thought, "Well, not vampires, not exactly, they're called Salianites…they're a sort of humanoid alien with eyes that are just completely blue…they do drain mammalian species of their blood for their high stores of saline, but only occasionally, when they're in dire need of nourishment. But there's something wrong with this lot. They can't go for more than a few hours without feeding, so they must be seriously ill, either mentally or physically. Nasty little buggers when they're rouge…" at her look of slight disgust he backpedaled a bit, "Now, don't get me wrong, most Salianites are quite personable. Why, I do believe that Bram Stoker was quite friendly with one for a few years and wrote _Dracula_ by exaggerating truths of the species that were shared with him by his mate. I think it was a spot of revenge for the friend sleeping with a woman they were both attracted to if I'm not mistaken…never mess with a writer, that's one thing that I've learned. I believe that Geoffrey Chaucer had a grudge with about half the people he described in _Canterbury Tales_…"

Seeing that the Doctor was getting sidetracked, Jack took over smoothly in the interval while the Doctor's train of thought took him elsewhere, "Anyway, the clan of Salianites we're going up against, we found their ship crashed on the outskirts of Cardiff, we took it over from the police and we found one body in the wreckage. It looked rather mangled, obvious that he died right on impact. Now, the ship was rather large, the escape pods were jettisoned, but we weren't too worried, 'cause like the Doctor said, they're usually not a handful. The ship was too mangled at the time for us to figure out what it's function was right there, so we photographed everything and brought the wreckage back to headquarters. Wasn't until after the first two killings we found out about that we were able to piece together most of the destination identification number on the ship…lucky break, really, most privately owned ships don't have them…anyway, I recognized the pair of end identifiers, '09', the traditional identifiers for shuttles to prison planets, carrying only prisoners. So," he finished with a dark grin, "we're basically tracking down anywhere from ten to twelve criminal, alien bloodsuckers. Still in?"

She gave him a hardened stare, "Did I ever give any indication that I wasn't, pretty boy?" to which Jack nodded

The Doctor smirked again, "Any questions?" he asked as he began to get up.

Evelyn rolled her eyes, truth be told, this conversation had really created more questions than it had answered, "None that need to be answered immediately, Doctor, but you do owe me some straight answers," she replied with a smirk of her own.

"All in good time," he said with his brown coat billowing behind him as they walked up the stairs that led into the currently deserted tourist information center. Much to the surprise of both men, Evelyn began to issue a slightly manic giggle as they made their way up the stairs.

When both the Doctor and Jack raised their eyebrows inquisitively, Evelyn replied with an increase of the volume of her laughter as she struggled to respond, "I-it's just s-so…f-f-funny!" she laughed, "Aliens and Vampires! Not so fictional after all, then! Who knows, maybe next I'll meet Harry Potter!" she said as she continued her manic laughter and both men just continued up the stairs in front of her, albeit a bit more slowly so she could catch up when she regained herself.

When Jack once again quirked an eyebrow to question the sanity of the Doctor's latest companion, the Doctor just shrugged and mouthed _'She's had a rough day'_.

…

A/N- So, the day finally starts catching up to our fair heroine! Don't worry, her sanity just took a quick vacation and will come back in time for the next chapter…Reviews make me happy(and when I'm happy I update faster)!!! : { )


	9. That's Bad, Isn't It?

A/N- Happy New Year!!! Best wishes to all my readers and reviewers. Have a wonderful 2009!

…

_-Cardiff, Wales, Great Britain, Earth, May 31st, 2028-_

It was three o'clock on May 31st of 2008 in Cardiff, Wales. The lazy balm of the near-summer sun continued to beat down as it had before, causing those who spent any time in it to relax into a pleasant haze. Almost June, flowers had begun to peep out of their buds seemingly just to tantalize anyone who looked upon them with the possibilities of what they might become, and the grass was green as emerald and in the shade the leaves were such a cool green so that they appeared almost blue. For once the springtime wet and muck had dried enough to give the Welsh landscape a visually lyrical effect, still a palette of cool greens from the wet of just a week ago but strikingly combined with the newly warmed browns. One would have had to have either had to have had a heart of stone or a devastating preoccupation to not have had their breath taken away by the beauty of the picturesque atmosphere.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, Evelyn Russell and Jack Harkness, the latter was true as they trekked from the Doctor's ship through the setting. Jack gave Evelyn a wary look and asked a question that hadn't occurred to him, "Do you know how to use a gun?" he suddenly asked in the dead silence.

Evelyn looked up at him and licked her lips as her mouth suddenly grew very dry, "I've never actually shot one before, but I suppose that the concept is pretty simple, right? Point and shoot," she said as much to reassure herself as to answer Jack's question.

He looked at her critically and muttered, "True …might want to put you on something with a low recoil, though…don't want you getting sucked dry in the middle of nowhere just because of a dislocated shoulder."

He rifled through his greatcoat and gave a quick, shrewd glance to a rather unimpressive looking gun that Evelyn (who had given it her own analytical glimpse) found almost insulting, so she voiced her opinions, "It looks like you've bent a syringe in half," she said with a quirked eyebrow.

"Yeah, but she does pack quite the little punch," he said mirthfully as he tossed her the pint-sized weapon, which she deftly caught. Upon closer examination, it seemed to be a bit more substantial than the bent syringe that she had compared it to, thicker and more curvy and without a plunger, although not much larger than what she had initially assumed it would be.

The Doctor heaved a heavy, exceptionally annoyed sigh, "Honestly, can't you ever solve anything without guns and gore?"

"Not when the problem I have to solve are ten convicted, manic bloodsuckers who have already killed twelve Cardiff citizens and I've virtually had to sell my soul to keep this quiet, Doctor," said Jack, still walking forward and looking straight, with neither frills nor preamble. The Doctor gave Evelyn a look that seemed to implore her to give up her arms; she returned it with a look that seriously questioned his sanity.

"Thanks, Gandhi, but I'd rather stick with the gun," she said as she casually held it in her hand whilst her relaxed stride held that she had no qualms about her decision. She quickened her pace to bring her in stride with Jack, "Are we the only ones?" she asked simply.

He shook his head, "No, my team is waiting for us about another quarter of a mile out. Martha, Mickey, Gwen and Ianto. They've seen stuff like this before; they'll have your back in a pinch."

She nodded; it was reassuring to know that there would be more people there. They would still be outnumbered, though. Her pulse quickened with both excitement and nerves, to the point where Dan (her father, although, considering that he had consistently been away more often than not, she hardly thought that he was deserving of the title) would have probably called it dangerous and erratic. But it got like this a lot (if her parents ever knew how much, then they probably would have insisted upon a battery of tests from some cardiologist friend of Dan's). The truth was that it wasn't a problem, in fact, it even felt natural. Though, to be fair, she mused as she walked on with the Doctor and Jack, she and Dan had never really seen eye-to-eye on these sorts of things.

She was more of the 'If it ain't broke, then don't fix it' school of thought.

"Here we are," Jack called, interrupting her thoughts. She looked up to see something that puzzled her a bit, four people, two men and two women, all of whom quickly nodded at the Doctor and Jack in lieu of a greeting. What puzzled Evelyn was that everyone here was, well, _old_. She had been expecting a crew of people in their mid-twenties, something more akin to Jack, but this crew reminded her more of her parent's friends than anything else. Jack made his introductions as short as possible, "Dr. Martha Milligan," he said and pointed to a lithe black woman with pulled back hair on the end of the group, who then raised a hand in a quick wave and a smile, "Ianto Jones," he then pointed to a man who looked to be more suited to sitting behind a desk than fighting aliens, "Gwen Cooper," he gestured, pointing to an exceptionally pale and thin brunette, "And Mickey Smith," he pointed to a black man whose dark eyes appeared to have seen things that no man should have to see, he finally waved a hand in her direction, "Evelyn Russell, she's with the Doctor," he said by way of an explanation, after which Martha gave her a long, evaluating stare before they began moving.

The Doctor sidled up alongside Jack, "Do you mind telling me the real reason why you had Martha bring me here, Jack?"

Still looking straight ahead, Jack played innocent, "To help," he said simply, though in his head there was a justifying 'True enough.'

"Jack…" the Doctor said reproachfully.

"Oh, alright," he petulantly muttered, he'd never been able to lie well to the Doctor in any case, "It's in case I'm wrong and it's something worse than rouge Salianites."

"And why could _that_ be, pray tell?" murmured the Doctor, in a rather annoyed manner.

"Because it doesn't fit!" Jack said, breaking the unspoken code of a whisper from prior to that, before dropping his voice once again to that grave level, "It doesn't fit. The attacks haven't plateaued like they should have. There are more and more each day. Even if they're still undernourished, which I sincerely doubt, the attacks shouldn't still be increasing at this rate. It's too steep. The bodies haven't been found, but all the other signs are there; rotting food, missed appointments, and half-starved pets. There's still the possibility that I'm wrong about being wrong, but I'm afraid that it could be worse, much worse."

"Then why tell me that it was a clan of rouge Salianites?!?!" the Doctor hissed in return.

"Because I don't know what else it _could_ be," he said gravely, "If I didn't know better, I'd say they were multiplying, Doctor, and at the rate they're going, they could wipe out all of Wales within the year."

"That's bad."

"Yeah. It is."

"Let's hope for the best then."

"I always do."

…

Evelyn tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as they trekked on; she looked behind her at the Doctor and Jack. They appeared to be having a very heated conversation about…she concentrated on them intently…about…_what_? She fumed as they finished their conversation and stormed back to Jack when the Doctor had broken away and continued a few paces ahead, she grabbed Jack's arm, "Where the fuck do you get off?" she hissed at him.

"What?" he asked, just above a whisper.

"Don't you _'what'_ me! You know _'what'_! My _GOD_! You don't _know_! It's your fucking job to _know_!" she said, punctuating each sentence with either a poke to his chest.

He glared at her, "Whatever you do, _Miss _Russell, _do not_ insult me by implying that you could have made my decisions or do my job better than me," walking away as if that ended the matter.

She was hardly impressed as she caught up with him and spun him around by his arm yet again, "I'm not _implying_ anything. I'm _saying_ that I think you're an idiot too afraid to admit that he needs help until it's dragged out of him."

He pursed his lips, "How did you even hear us anyway? You were easily ten feet away and we were hardly shouting."

She narrowed her eyes, "Don't change the subject."

He rolled his eyes and said rather coldly, "Do you have a point?"

"Yeah," she replied as she walked off, "You're an asshole."

…

As Evelyn fumed, Martha came up beside her, "He can make you that way sometimes," she observed sagely.

"Oh, I doubt you know the half of it," Evelyn muttered darkly.

Martha smiled warmly, "Oh, I'd have to contradict you there. I've known him for about twenty years now. He gets to grow on you."

Evelyn expressed her doubt through a rather unladylike snort.

Martha shook her head, "So, have you been with the Doctor long?"

Evelyn shook her head, "No, we just met actually."

She smiled, "I traveled with him, about twenty years ago, best time of my life though," she gave Evelyn a piercing look, "I saw and did things with that man that I will never forget. The time you spend with him passes like the blink of an eye, don't waste it," she and Evelyn shared an intense look for a moment before Evelyn nodded in assent.

Clear as day, Evelyn heard new footsteps in the distance, she frowned and turned to Martha, "Did you hear that?" she said quickly.

"What?" she asked perplexedly. Evelyn heavily sighed, she always seemed to hear things that others didn't at home…it was just that at home it was never anything worth mentioning.

"Are you sure?"

Martha gave her a look, "Yes, Evelyn, are you quite all right?"

But Evelyn was barely even listening anymore; she just nodded and began to focus on the noise that she had heard, again, louder this time. She started off in the direction she had heard it from, ignoring the yells of protest form all of the others except the Doctor, who had begun to follow in the direction she lead. She looked at the Doctor and asked, "You heard?"

"Yes," he said while looking at her critically.

"Good," she said as she broke off into a run that he soon followed.

They soon arrived at a clearing of hedges where they crouched in the bushes. Evelyn sat as still as possible, before she caught sight of something that made her breath catch in her throat.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"You said that the Salianites were humanoid creatures with completely blue eyes, right?"

"That I did, that I did."

"Well then, Doctor, by my reckoning, those aren't Salianites."

"No, no they're not."

"Then what _are_ they?"

"They're Haemovroes."

"Oh…Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"That's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes, very."

…

A/N- So, this is for Well Isn't That Wizard

GallifreyanMaiden: Hey! You! Yes, you! Get out here!

Harry Potter: Hi…

GalliferyanMaiden: This is Harry's cameo!

Harry Potter: Can I go home to Ginny now?

GallifreyanMaiden: NO!!! Not until you take me to Severus!

Harry Potter: Snape?

GallifreyanMaiden: No, Harkness…OF COURSE SNAPE!!!

Harry Potter: But he's dead!

GallifreyanMaiden: *sobs* Fine, then, Sirius?

Harry Potter: Dead.

GallifreyanMaiden: Damn. Lupin?

Harry Potter: Dead

GallifreyanMaiden: Damn. Fred?

Harry Potter: Is dead, but I can offer you George…

GallifreyanMaiden: I WON'T SETTLE!!! Fine, just take me to Malfoy, then.

Harry Potter: Can do! *picks up GM*

GallifreyanMaiden: *whilst being carted away* HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! REVIEWS POR FAVOR!!!


	10. Faith

A/N- And here be the update…enjoy! Oh, and I've just realized that there probably are not forests 'on the outskirts of Cardiff'. My defense? It's AU. Deal with it. Anywhore, on with the chapter!

…

When Jack and the rest of the team finally caught up with Evelyn and the Doctor, each one was out of breath from the long run that they had needed to keep up with the teenager and the Time Lord. Jack came up first and was both perturbed and pleasantly surprised when both the Doctor and Evelyn jumped on him to rather forcefully throw him to the forest floor.

"Well, I know that they say make love not war, but do you two really think this is the most appropriate time?" he said in a low, mischievous whisper.

Evelyn responded with a look of pure disgust crossing her features, "You wish, Harkness," she said dismissively but jumped a bit when she heard a twig snap a ways off, "Christ, Harkness, do you think that your team could be any louder?"

He looked up at her impishly and asked, "Do you really want me to answer that?"

She gave him an evaluating look and quickly replied, "No," as he continued to smirk cheekily at her, "Go tell them to quiet down," she sighed.

She was rather annoyed when he grinned and said in that still same voice, "Gladly, but you'll need to get off of me first."

It was only then that Evelyn noted with some embarrassment that the Doctor had already gotten up off of Jack (probably before she had even started talking) and that she was still straddled across his waist in an uncomfortably sexual manner...and that without the Doctor's weight on him as well he could very well have moved her off him any time he liked. As the blush began to creep into her cheeks and Jack's features contorted into another smirk she gracelessly rolled off him as he slowly got up to dust himself off and walked off nonchalantly to his team around 100 yards back.

"Jack!" the Doctor called out to him as he sauntered away.

"Yeah?"

"Circle around, see if you can find another point of entry. No sense in all of us barging in all at once, right?" he replied.

Jack nodded and gave him a casual two-fingered salute as he continued back towards his team, "You've got it, Doc," he answered.

The Doctor turned to her, which she honestly suspected was a bit of an afterthought, "Go with him, Evelyn," he said sternly.

She glared at him, "I'm not a child," she hissed.

Inwardly, her words wounded him…they reminded him too much of Jenny, "You're seventeen," he replied matter-of-factly in a conversation ending tone.

"I'm going to be eighteen in six months!" she replied with whispered indignation.

"Exactly!" he said, matching her tone, "You're too young to be putting yourself in this kind of danger. _Go with him._"

"You're not my father!" she said in a low hiss, firmly standing her ground.

He turned to glare at her, "No, I'm not, but that doesn't change the fact that you are seventeen and that you are far too young to be doing this."

"No." she replied irritably.

He snorted, "That's mature."

"You're just wasting time, you realize?" she replied, "I'm rather stubborn, in case you hadn't noticed."

"No worry there, I have. It's rather irritating."

"I prefer to think of it as charming."

"Not when you're at the brunt of it," he replied moodily.

"Of course it isn't," she answered with a caustic roll of her eyes.

"Can we get back to business, please? You need to stick close to me so we can get-" he suddenly looked over at her, "How do you do that?"

She looked genuinely perplexed, "What?"

"That thing…that thing where you say or do something that gets me off topic and then all of a sudden, you've won the argument and had your way."

"Natural talent?" she said wryly.

He shook his head ruefully, "You, Evelyn Russell, are a most remarkable mystery."

"Good to know I'm thought of so highly," she replied dryly.

"I will puzzle you out, Evelyn, just you wait," he replied with a smirk.

"Good. When you finish exploring my mind, could you tell me what you find? I'd be quite interested to know what's in there myself."

He snorted to himself, "Humans, always thinking that there's something deep and buried up in all those wonderful heads of theirs…You'll see," he said to her, "Someday, that mind of yours will be so well-used and broken in that you'll long for the days when there was a bit of mystery to keep it interesting."

She looked at him sadly, "You're probably right…it's just that sometimes-What was that?" she said as she suddenly broke off.

"I don't know," murmured the Doctor as he gazed off distantly in the noises' general direction before his head suddenly whipped back in Evelyn's direction, with that classically manic smile gracing his features once again, "But I can guess," he said abruptly, creeping ever closer to the thicket of trees that were the only things separating them from what Evelyn would later fondly recall as fate.

There was really nothing she could so but run after him…to make sure he didn't kill himself…really.

She followed after him with her light, nimble step, carefully avoiding the copious brush underfoot. By all rights, at this point she should have been a bit panicked and certainly pale as a sheet, but, much to her own bewilderment, she was calm, even serene. Hugging herself closer to the tree was an act of self-preservation rather than one of fear. Her breathing was even, although a bit shallow, so she took a deep breath of the fresh air around her in an effort to force her mind to succumb to the reality of it all instead of just treating it like some surreal dream. On that breath she took in a few familiar springtime scents; wildflowers, the vague remnants of early morning dew, the heady sweet scent of new shoots of grass and soil, freshly tossed aside by the mint green buds. There were also new scents, unfamiliar but intoxicating all the same; particularly the comfortable and musky yet gratifying scent of the man just a few trees down. She closed her eyes and reluctantly exhaled the boldly aromatic array of scents and simply turned her head in the way she thought the Doctor had ventured before taking yet another deep inhale while a satisfied smile played across her lips…she didn't find him attractive by any stretch of the imagination, but, lord, that scent! It was missing something, though, a vaguely woody scent that she couldn't quite place...Her expectations of another giddy springtime climax were shattered, however, when her deep inhale was overwhelmed by the distinctly coppery scent of blood.

The Hameovores.

How could she have been so stupid!?!?! Getting distracted by scents and spring…she needed to focus on the task at hand, and that was helping the Doctor so that she could get home to…what exactly? She had nothing, not really…no boyfriend, no driving ambition, no real passion…

If she was being honest with herself, the only reason she wanted to get back was to see if she could fix her car.

It was a little depressing, really, she was eighteen, graduating from high school, had just gone to her prom (albeit after having a rather crappy prom experience) and she was at an absolute low point of interests and expectations. She heaved an irritated sigh and set her sight on the task before her. She turned towards the Doctor and, cocking a single eyebrow, cocked her head towards the clearing. He gave her a quick nod in assent, gave her a sharp look and mouthed _'Keep behind me'_. Evelyn just sighed again and nodded, her legs already poised to keep up with whatever he threw at her.

The Doctor suddenly stopped behind a massive oak tree and left Evelyn tripping over her flailing arms and legs to stop in time. She caught herself on the tree and looked up to give him a quick glower, from which she was quickly distracted following the Doctor's far-away look towards the Haemovore's encampment.

Her look changed from one of annoyance to one of curiosity, "Doctor?" she asked, reaching out towards him, "Doctor?" she asked again with increasing urgency, quickly latching on to his shoulder, to which he jumped back a bit in response.

"Really Ace," he seemed to mutter without thinking.

Evelyn gave him a startled glance, "_Evelyn._ Doctor, are you alright?"

He shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts, "Yes, yes, why not?"

Evelyn bit back a shriek of frustration, they didn't have time for this, "Just forget it," she said in a resigned monotone. He nodded at her, although still airing a bit more on the side of retrospect than she would have really liked.

"Right," he said, back to a fairly fitting business-like persona, "Well…oh, dear, I really should have a plan shouldn't I?"

"Yeah," came her voice in a breathy, disbelieving hiss.

"Oh well," he said in a rather chipper manner while Evelyn's mouth dropped another half an inch, "Might as well get on with it. Allonsy!"

She shook her head as the Doctor waltzed ahead and followed him at what she considered to be a safe distance.

They broke through the thick underbrush with relative ease, finally entering the clearing proper after what seemed like an eternity. All of the Hameovores, their blood red soulless eyes turned towards them like a shot, it was hard to believe that they were all once human, for they all looked somewhat similar, each having coal black hair and ice pale skin stretched taught across uniformly thin frames.

"Hello!" said the Doctor cheerily, although Evelyn saw the forced, slightly strained character behind the wide idiot's grin.

"Doctor…" Evelyn muttered out of the side of her mouth, which also held a toothy overzealous grin, "What are you doing?"

"Still no idea," he replied in kind

"Oh, yay," came her sarcastic hushed response. They moved ever closer as Evelyn began to unconsciously shrink against the Doctor in fright.

"Now, eh, I believe that you have been, uh…feeding off of the residents of this city and…err, well…I don't really appreciate it all that much."

"Ooh, scary," she muttered to him as an unholy moan rose from the ever advancing wall of undead.

"Err, Evelyn?" he said.

"What?" she hissed.

"I don't quite think that they understand me."

"Really?!?!?" she replied in mock surprise, as they walked towards them in such a manner that Evelyn began to unconsciously bite her lip in alarm as the ridiculous grin and bravado faded, her eyes darting around their surroundings, looking for any way to get out alive.

"Time for Plan B," he said almost nonchalantly.

"Which is?"

"Get the bloody hell out of here."

She rolled her eyes, "Do you want a Nobel Prize for that one Einstein?"

She let out a shallow breath and looked over her shoulder to see a small, almost imperceptible break in the dense wall of foliage behind her. She looked up at the Doctor as he gave her a quick nod and mouthed 'Go.'

That was all the cue she needed. She ran without grace and tumbled towards her salvation, tunnel vision took over, with Evelyn barely noting the thorny bushes creating a variety of lightly bleeding scratches all over her body, nor did she notice the bleeding caused by a thick branch whose height she'd misjudged.

Evelyn looked back at the Doctor with purest desperation. Her hair, matted with sweat and blood, flew about her face as she ran and fumbled for the small gun at her side. She pulled down on the trigger with her eyes squeezed shut and her face turned from the unholy beasts that made their slow progression towards her. To her horror, they were merely blasted back a few yards; but that was all she needed. At a breakneck speed, she ran to the Doctor, reaching towards him and catching herself clumsily on his bony elbow as she toppled onto him, her chest heaving. Her eyes widened in fear as the Haemovoeres closed in on them. She pulled herself up and pressed herself to the Doctor's back, where she reached down for her gun only to find…a banana.

She turned to glare at the Doctor whose only response was to look back at her as if to say 'Who, me?'

"I can't believe you," she muttered incredulously, "It doesn't even hurt them."

"Poor habit to get into," he replied nonchalantly as she rolled her eyes in disbelief. As she turned again to reply he cut her off with earnest, "Evelyn. Don't be afraid."

She looked him straight in the eyes, with the express intent of telling him how asinine he sounded and that now if any was a damn good time to be afraid, but she stopped as she saw him. He looked so…right, so trustworthy, that before she could stop herself she found herself saying, "I'm not afraid. I'm with you," and then promptly cringed at the overt sentimentality of the statement.

But then the strangest thing happened.

They started to fall.

Like burning wood, like the sands of an hourglass, they collapsed in the most beautifully macabre manner. Down, down they fell, noiseless screams issuing from their dry, soundless throats, reminding Evelyn strangely of a silent film. Her grip on the Doctor loosened as she watched in morbid fascination as these woefully unnatural beings reduced to soot before her very eyes, becoming naught but a pile of clothes and dust in the wind.

Her full body turned to the Doctor, looking up at him as a child for answers, her mouth moving wordlessly for a few moments before she could get it working properly again, "Wha-how?" she asked, hopelessly lost.

"Faith," he murmured almost inaudibly, slowly making his way around the piles of dust and soot that surrounded them, crouching down to one a few feet away and rubbing it between his fingers, "True, powerful, intense faith," he stood upright and turned back to her, "It was you, pure, unadulterated you."

"What?" came her whispered response.

"You must have had such a powerful, unshakeable faith in someone or something that it was enough to destroy them," he said, as much to himself as to her.

"But-but I can't have," she said in disbelief, "I'm just me…just average, boring me."

He smiled at her indulgently, "You're human," he said, reaching out and cupping her face whilst gently rubbing his thumb against it, "That's special enough," he said with a smirk as he lead her away, "Oh, and Evelyn?"

"Yeah?"

"You are anything but 'average' and 'boring'."

Just then the Torchwood team ran up to them, "Christ, are you all right?" asked Jack, at the head of the group, as they all came to a skidding halt.

"Fine," said Evelyn hoarsely.

At this, Martha's lips pursed, "Let me see your head," she said with all of her medic's professionalism, as she strode over to Evelyn and parted her long thick hair to get a better look at the sluggishly bleeding gash on her head.

"My-oh," came Evelyn's vaguely confused voice as she touched a hand to her head and pulled her fingers away to find the tips covered in dark crimson blood.

"Don't touch it," said Martha, gently but firmly moving her hand back to her side as she took a closer perusal of the cut and turned to the Doctor, "Take her back to the TARDIS straight away. Don't let her touch it. Clean it, dress it, keep an eye on it, got it?" she said quickly with that still same clipped professionalism.

The Doctor nodded sheepishly, a bit embarrassed at not having noticed her injuries, "Got it," he turned to Evelyn, "Come on," he said as he wrapped an arm around her to support her.

She quickly pulled away with an indignant glare, "I have a head wound, I'm not an invalid."

The Doctor sighed defeatedly as if to say 'Whatever you like.'

She walked forward, still in a bit of a daze, but had only made it a few steps before she failed to notice a fairly large grouping of significantly sized rocks. She stumbled over one and pitched forward. The Doctor and Jack both ran forward in a bid to grab her, but they were too late, she fell on to the rocks with an ominous crack issuing from where she had landed. They ran over to her as she began to try to push herself up, both tentatively reaching out to help her up. Her hand shot out to signify to them that they should keep away.

"I'm…fine," she heaved out heavily between labored breaths; her hand slowly went back down to support her body weight as she began to slowly push herself up, her face quickly contorting in pain as her elbows buckled, "Not fine! Not fine! Not fine!" she yelled as she went down again. The Doctor and Jack both swept in to each grab an elbow and slowly ease her up.

The Doctor turned to Jack, "She's not going to be able to walk back to the TARDIS," he said seriously, "Do you think that you can carry her?" he asked Jack.

"Sure," said Jack quietly, already moving to cradle the unprotesting woman. The Doctor gently went and wrapped her arms securely around his neck, wincing in sympathy as she emitted a small squeak at even that gentle movement. Jack looked down at her drawn and pale face as her head lolled loosely against his shoulder, suddenly looking less the feisty woman he had grown to know and find rather entertaining and more the helpless waif. He unconsciously clutched her closer, afraid that if he even loosened his hold a bit she would disappear.

They finally reached the TARDIS where Jack found himself surprisingly unwilling to hand Evelyn over to the Doctor's more than capable care. He mentally shook himself and gently secured the woman in the Doctor's arms and held open the TARDIS's door for him as he carried her into the Medibay off the second hallway and closed them after the two with a reluctant sigh.

…

A/N- Hi, all! Soo sorry for the long update, but I personally think that it was worth it. Good news is that I already have chapter 11 written barring some revision and chapter 12 is already a good way along. I'm hoping that maybe these will fit better if I write them all simultaneously, at worst it will result in quicker updates and similar quality, so I don't really think that I can go wrong. And as it's (almost) St. Patty's Day, review, I'm Irish, but seriously, everyone have a wonderful, safe, healthy and happy St. Patrick's Day and may you not be the designated driver.


	11. Hope

A/N- So here's Chapter 11…which I wrote prior to Chapter 10...What can I say? My mind works in strange and mysterious ways…

…

_-The TARDIS Medibay, the Time Vortex, Time and Space -_

The Doctor helped Evelyn over to one of the beds on the TARDIS Medibay, "Steady, now," he cautioned as she lowered herself the rest of the way on to the bed with a pained grimace, "There you are, here just let me…" he trailed off as he fixed some pillows behind her back to help her sit up a little less painfully. She nodded with her eyes still scrunched up from the movement…sometimes she wished she wasn't so fucking stubborn.

The Doctor saw the look she gave him, "You know that this wouldn't happen if you just had let me carry you all the way in here," he said pragmatically.

She glared at him, "Shut up," she muttered darkly, leaning heavily on the pillows for support.

He gave her a wicked look, "Of course you weren't so protesting with Jack carrying you…hmmm, I wonder…" he said in a singsong tone.

"Oh just shove it up your-Ah!" she hissed midsentence, having leaned so far back into the pillows that she'd managed to aggravate her injury further. The Doctor quickly sprang into action, pulling her up and reorganizing the pillows behind her to offer more support.

"Thanks," she said hoarsely as she laid a hand across her ribs, her long dark hair falling across her bloodless and scratched face, giving her an unfortunate, corpse-like appearance. The Doctor appeared regretful as he peeled her right arm off of her ribs.

"Sorry, I'm going to need that," he said in a soothing tone. All Evelyn managed was a nod, deciding that it was too troublesome to take a deep enough breath for speech. The Doctor nodded and searched for a vein on her arm's pale underside, and, finding one of sufficient width, jabbed an IV needle into it as smoothly as he could. She gave him a dark, defeated look and then simply sighed and looked away, "Morphine-" he started, but was cut off by a quick irritated 'I know' from Evelyn.

"My father's a doctor," she said tersely by way of an explanation.

"Really?" said the Doctor, surprised, although he didn't know why…he supposed that he had just never thought to associate Evelyn with something so…average.

She relaxed a bit as the morphine hit her system, "Yeah," she said, her voice almost a soft purr in comparison to the growl she had been emitting before, "Although, mind you, he's home so little that he could be leading a secret double life as the caped crusader for all I know."

As she relaxed, so did the Doctor, "Sounds a bit like me and my dad," he said reminiscently, "We never saw…eh, eye-to-eye on a few things."

A quick snort issued from her mouth, "Like what, the fact that you refuse to wear a cape when you crusade?"

A weak smile graced the Doctor's lips, "Yeah, something like that."

Her eyes suddenly went wide, "Oh, my, I'm so sorry."

He just raised his eyebrows, "It's really fine."

She just shook her head, "No, really, I've obviously brought up something…well, I don't quite know what to call it…but it's not good, and I apologize."

He looked her in the eyes, "Evelyn, look at me," he turned her head towards him, "It's _fine._ I'm not mad. You didn't know. So don't apologize."

"I'm s-" she said before stopping herself, "Noted," she stated simply instead, "Now, Doctor, I do believe that you've promised me some answers," Evelyn said with a knowing smiled as she settled herself deeper into her hospital-like bed.

"Oh, wouldn't you like me to sort your ribs out first?" he said in a poor attempt at distracting her from her desire to learn more of him.

She wasn't deterred; she gestured to the IV drip in her arm that he had given her in an attempt to make her more comfortable for the x-rays ahead, "You're not getting away that easily, Doctor," she said with a smirk, "A steady morphine drip? Why, I could ask questions all day if I pleased, although it would be ill advised, I'm sure."

He heaved a heavy sigh as he ran his hand over his face, "Has anyone ever told you that you're too forward by half?"

Her smirk widened, "Not in so many words."

He hadn't been expecting anything different, "Ask away," he said resignedly…he wasn't used to this…not since Donna…but he wouldn't think on that…

"What is this thing?" she said, gesturing around her with the hand not incapacitated by the IV drip.

He looked up, rather affronted, "_She_ is not a _thing_! _She's_ the TARDIS. Stands for 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space'. She can travel everywhere and anywhere, through time and space and any in-between that you can think of," he finished off with a rather proud look on his face as Evelyn digested this information…it basically confirmed everything that she had already pieced together for herself, so she shot off her next question without so much as a blink of awe, much to the Doctors' disappointment.

"What are you?" she said with a curious look. He looked at her inquiringly after this; she was clever, almost too clever. Most of his companions didn't piece that together until he told them as much.

"What makes you think that I'm anything other than a rather clever human, traveling time and space?"

She gave him a scathing glare meant to make him know he wouldn't be getting away with any misdirection, "I'm not an idiot, if humans could ever make this up, which I sincerely doubt, by the way, because this," she waved her free arm around in a gesture to the TARDIS, "Breaks nearly every law of physics. Every body of law would be restricting it and outlawing it so fast that before you could blink it would be more trouble than it's worth. There is no way that any human could find a way to generate the power necessary to run this, either. I mean, the consumption must be massive…you'd either need perpetual motion or maybe an energy source that would restore itself instantaneously and can be found in monstrous quantities. And," when she got here, both her eyes and tone softened, "Your eyes…by all appearances you can't be a day over thirty-three…but your eyes, at times they're so clouded…like you're not even here…and at others…at others they're so old, like you've lived for hundreds of years…and I believe that you have," she finished on a firm note.

He grew so solemn and pensive that for a moment Evelyn feared she had ruined her chances of ever having her questions answered, but he then shocked them both by croaking out, "I'm a Time Lord. The last of my kind, all of whom died in the Last Great Time War. I transform into a new body when my current one dies. I can see every bit of time and space flowing through my mind, every possible outcome for every possible course of action. I can live almost forever. I live with both a great gift and a great burden. I am neither the greatest of my people nor the most powerful, I survived by happenstance…I am alone."

"But you survived," she said, her simple response fingering on that simple survival instinct that was burrowed deep within all species, and her conviction relaying that she thought it no mistake.

He didn't even appear to be there anymore, "Only by destroying all of my people along with our enemies did I save the universe from the terror of the Daleks. And not even then were they destroyed. They continued to haunt me in some form or another, even though they are now hopefully vanquished for good."

For once Evelyn was at a loss for words. She finally grasped his limp hand in hers with a light squeeze that brought him back to the present and said quietly, "Right. One last question."

He looked at her with empty eyes, "What?"

"Could you take that x-ray of my ribs now? The morphine drip is starting to make me feel a little high."

…

Evelyn winced and made a noise halfway between a cry and a hiss as she raised her arm for the x-ray of the side of her ribs, "You'd think that they'd have invented something better in one of those time periods you've traveled to," she muttered by way of making light of the situation.

"Oh, they have," the Doctor said absently as he aimed the machine at her side and started pushing buttons to activate the contraption, "I just didn't want to expose to something that you're…err…anatomically unsuited for."

Evelyn just raised an eyebrow, "Oh, bullshit, you're just a bloody sadist and you know it," she said with a smile.

"Perhaps, Miss Russell, perhaps…" he replied with his best attempt at a vicious smile, which was thoroughly trounced by his simultaneous attempt to smother his laughter. He took the x-ray with a quick push of a button and looked at the picture, "Right. Looks like you've got a partial fracture of the…" he counted again…no that couldn't be right…

"Doctor? Is there a problem?" called Evelyn from her place in front of the machine, about ten feet away.

"Err…just stay still for a minute, yeah Evelyn? I'm going to take another just to be sure," he hit the button again and counted the number on the screen and saw something that made his breath catch…26 ribs. He looked to Evelyn and said, "Err…help me out here because I'm a little rusty on my human anatomy," he caught her quick snort that seemed to say _'Oh joy, the man determining whether or not I'm seriously injured is a bit rusty on his anatomy'_, "How many ribs does a human have?"

"24," she called out without hesitation, although a bit of confusion laced her tone.

He looked at her x-ray in disbelief…no, it was too much to hope for…

"Evelyn, face front to me," he called and she (thankfully) turned obediently. He took her frontal x-ray and heaved a heavy mental sigh…it would most likely amount to nothing…just a random anatomical quirk in a human that happened to match a common Gallifreyan feature. His weary eyes slid to the screen where they took in a sight that caused him to stop breathing for a few seconds. He took a second look, hardly daring to believe his own eyes and then slid his glasses atop his nose for a final look.

Two hearts.

Oh, Rassilon, what was that feeling called again?

Oh, yes.

Hope.

…

A/N- I think I'm withholding chapter 12 until I gets me some reviews…hint hint…


	12. Knowing

A/N- You knew that this would be fun…

…

_-The TARDIS Medibay, the Time Vortex, Time and Space –_

He continued to smile as he wrapped the general area of her injury in bandages. He must have been going at it too hard, though, because she gave a quick wince and muttered through her rigidly gritted teeth, "Not so tight."

He just nodded and loosened the bandages a bit. He was unbelievably excited, but she was rather young, only seventeen, so that meant that her parents…at least three other Time Lords…he now acutely understood the phrase 'deliriously happy'.

"There, done," he said as he finished.

She glared at him sullenly, "I'm so happy that my pain amuses you," she said sarcastically.

He realized that he was still grinning like an idiot, and valiantly tried to stop.

She looked back at him with her nose wrinkled up in annoyance, "Oh, honestly, if you need to laugh that badly, just do it," she muttered at him as she pulled her top back on gingerly.

He did feel a bit bad about the grin when he heard how she read it, he really did, but he really did want to be sure.

"Evelyn?"

Apparently she still had no desire to forgive him, "Dare I even ask?" she questioned darkly.

"Well, you really _should _know" he replied to her with that still same grin.

"Get on with it then," she replied with her arms folded across her chest her lips still scrunched from the pain of movement.

"Go sit," he gestured towards the bed.

"Ugh, gladly," she muttered, shuffling her way to the bed, half bent in an effort to feel as little pain as possible.

While she was grappling with making her way over to the bed, the Doctor had busied himself with running over to a far corner of the Medibay to find the small, thickish, rust red, clipboard-sized object that he was looking for. Once he found that, two pricking needles, and two Band-Aids, he bounded back over to the well-lit 'patient area' of the room.

He sat on the bed opposite Evelyn as he readied the equipment, pulling out two small trays from the rust-colored object.

"What is that?" she asked from the bed.

"Genetic reader," he replied distractedly as he picked his finger and let a drop of blood fall into the tray labeled 'Master Sample' after which he deftly placed a Band-Aid over his finger.

He turned to her, "Give me your finger for a sec, yeah?" he asked gently as she held out her hand to him with an exasperated sigh but no question.

"Thanks," he said as he pricked her finger and let a single drop of blood fall into the tray labeled 'Comparison' and placed a Band-Aid over her finger as well. She took her hand back and gave a cursory glance to the magazines on the table before picking up a _People_.

He concentrated on the screen atop the panel before him while it read out the results of the DNA test he had just preformed on his intriguing mystery of a companion. His hearts skipped a beat as his suspicions were confirmed; she was a Time Lord…well Time Lady…

He was thrilled, but something kept niggling at the back of his mind while he continued to look at the readout…something was there, something that he should be seeing but wasn't…He compared his alleles to hers again, looking for something that he might have missed. Everything seemed to be in order…their alleles matched up properly…but they were almost too similar. He looked again; no it couldn't be…he counted again, but his numbers still came out the same, half and half. Half of her alleles were identical to half of his.

Oh Rassilon.

She was his daughter.

…

The Doctor had only two thoughts on his mind as he woke from his coma-like dead faint.

'_Oh crap.'_

And, _'Must find a way to kill Jack.'_

He groaned and put his hand to head in a vain hope that it was all a dream…a scary, utterly frightening, alcohol-induced dream…

His hopes were utterly dashed as he rolled over and saw her on the next bed now flipping through a copy of _Star_.

Evelyn heard a pathetic groan from the next bed as she put down her magazine on the table between the beds, her owlish brown eyes looked over at him "You fainted," she said unnecessarily.

He tried to give her something akin to a glare, although it came out as more of the type of confused squint you give to the bright light after being asleep for a very long time when you don't at all expect the world to be quite as irritatingly bright as it is. Looking at her, you could see the similarities; the eyes, the shade of hair, the thin, lanky bone structure. He groaned and moved his hand to cover his eyes. Her eyes widened a fraction as her brows knit together concernedly; she braced herself against the side of the bed to move over to him before he waved his hand at her to reseat herself. She gave him one last once over and sighed as she slowly and painfully sat herself against the pillows once again with her eyes scrunched up in discomfort.

He finally opened up his eyes and said (a tad belatedly), "I didn't faint."

She opened a single eye and replied a bit sardonically, "Oh no? Then what was that?"

"It was a highly advanced stress-coping process, a Time Lordian biological mechanism that humans could never hope to evolve enough to develop."

A single snort escaped her as she didn't even bother to open her eyes again , "Yeah right. You fainted. Accept it and move on."

He frowned petulantly as he slipped into the pattern of comfortable banter they'd slid into over the past day, "Did not."

"Did so. Don't be such a child."

He was silent for a moment…this wasn't really going where it needed to go.

"Evelyn?"

"Hmm?" she replied contentedly.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain would quick movement cause you right now?"

Her eye snapped open with what appeared to be the beginnings of a glare, "Eight. Why?"

He took a deep steadying breath prior to what he assumed would be his final moments, "Err…well…because…umm…"

What had formerly been the beginnings of a glare was now a full blown glower which was mingled with quite a bit of distaste, "Oh, for Christ's sake, get on with it."

He slowly began to get up and make a cautious move for the door "I think that it is rather possible that I could be your father…" he said, inching towards escape all the while.

"_What?_" she shrieked, her brown eyes wide and her face paling a degree.

He suddenly became intensely interested in the opposite wall, "Umm…err…"

Her head slammed back against the pillows as her mouth widened in disbelief, "Oh, lord, you have _got_ to be kidding me," she said as her head landed on the pillow with an almost inaudible thud, she looked him straight in the eye, "_Please_ tell me you're kidding."

"I'm afraid that I'm not," he mumbled as he looked away and scratched his neck awkwardly.

"_How?_" she asked in bewilderment.

He looked at her, "Well, Evelyn, when a man and a woman get very, very drunk…"

She snorted, "Don't be dense. I know how that happens you idiot, I mean you and mom, specifically."

"Well," he stopped to clear his throat, "It would help if I knew," he stopped again, "Err…who your mother was…"

She shut her eyes tight, "Oh Jesus," she muttered under her breath and shut her eyes tight, "Donna, does that ring a bell?"

His eyes widened a fraction and he was stunned into silence. Unfortunately, she mistook that for a 'no'.

She rolled her eyes, "Russell?"

He let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief before she continued, "Although I suppose she would have been Noble back then…"

He started chocking on air.

"Are you all right?" she asked, concern lacing her tone.

With a fair bit of effort, he managed to nod in the affirmative.

"Fine," he coughed out, "It's just that um…err, well, wow…"

"Do I want to know?" she asked in a tone that implied she seriously doubted it.

"Not particularly," he replied.

"I didn't think so."

They sat for a while in companionable, contemplative silence before the Doctor broke it out of the blue.

"You're a lot like her, you know."

She cocked an eyebrow, "How so?"

"Well, mind, you're quite a bit more sober than she was the last time I saw her…and I suppose now that I'm you're father, I feel the need to tell you that I'd rather you'd always be this sober," here he gave a pointed look at which she rolled her eyes, "But I traveled with her, ages ago. Oh, she was brilliant," he said, a reminiscent sparkle gracing his large brown eyes, "Do you know what she thought I was when we first met? She thought that I traveled around time and space, kidnapping young women to have my way with," he snorted, "That dazzling, fantastic woman, never did shut up until it suited her…" he said with a smile that spilt his face wide, of which he seemed totally unaware.

Evelyn looked at him, awestruck, "You really did care for her, didn't you?"

"More than you know," he replied wistfully.

"Then why did she leave?" Evelyn asked.

The Doctor looked grim, "Because I didn't give her a choice," he replied dourly, "I could have either made her leave or let her die…but you know what they say, that which does not kill us-".

Evelyn cut him off, "Makes us colder," she replied with conviction.

He sighed, "You are so young," he murmured wistfully, "Evelyn," he sighed, "You are a Time Lady, with that title come great power but also a great responsibility and a great burden."

"Been watching _Superman _lately, have we?" she snorted.

"First off, that's beside the point, and secondly I'm serious, you have the whole of time and space flowing through your mind. You can change worlds, destinies, futures," he said with incredible seriousness before his eyes widened with the remembrance of one last thing, "Oh, and thirdly, that's _Spider-Man_."

She laughed, "Do you always have to be right?"

He smiled, "Can't help it if I always am, now can I?"

She rolled her eyes "Whatever you say, Spaceman."

He rolled his in kind, "Right back at you Spacegirl."

…

A/N- Originally sooo much different, but I actually like this better. Thank you to my reviewers for keeping me motivated and sane. Now I have to figure out how to bring Donna back in…Don't leave me guessing as to how you liked it, review!


	13. Tea?

A/N- Lucky number thirteen…

…

_-The TARDIS Medibay, the Time Vortex, Time and Space –_

In the oddly sterile, futuristic environment of the TARDIS's medical wing, two people lay, utterly at peace in the strange contentment that was sleep. One, the Doctor, was on his back with his limbs thrown out at haphazard angles, his characteristic grin gracing his features even in slumber, still in his trademark suit and trainers. On the next bed over, there was a young woman who looked to be not quite yet out of her teens, looking vaguely battered and bruised, but no worse for the wear. Her face was arranged in a zen-like state, a barely perceptible curve adorning her lips. The girl stirred and yawned largely and began to stretch luxuriously from her curled position.

That is until the pain in her ribcage caused her to snap back up into her protective ball, the sharp movement of which caused her to roll, and with a loud thunk, hit her head on the bedside table.

From her new crouched position on the floor, Evelyn gave a plaintive groan and glared up at the bedside table irritably as she rubbed her injured head. The commotion caused the Doctor to wake mid-snore and roll off his bed (albeit, a bit more gracefully than his progeny) to see what was the matter.

"Are you alright?" he asked, reaching down to help her up.

She switched her irritated glare to him easily, "Oh, I'm fine," she muttered sarcastically as she took his arm and rubbed her throbbing head, "Absolutely bloody brilliant."

He gave her an appraising look as she leaned against the bed still massaging her temples, "Tea?" he asked with an amusedly quirked eyebrow.

"Please," she replied with a friendly grimace as he took her arm to help her to the kitchen.

As they reached the kitchen, Evelyn braced herself against the table as she sat, and was pleasantly surprised that her ribs hurt astronomically less than they had the day before. She unceremoniously propped her feet up on the chair beside her as the Doctor busied himself about the kitchen, flipping on the kettle and grabbing a package of Oreos out of the cabinet.

As he plopped them down on the table along with two mismatched mugs, Evelyn raised a wry eyebrow, "Breakfast of champions?" she asked, barely bothering to hide a giggle.

"But of course!" the Doctor replied as he rummaged about some of the other cabinets in search of teabags, the two easily falling into their pattern of witty banter.

He proceeded to pop two teabags into their mugs just as the kettle came to a boil with a piercing whistle, he poured the tea quietly and Evelyn absentmindedly played with the string of her teabag as it steeped.

"So," she asked after taking her first sip of tea, promptly burning her tongue and causing her to grimace, "What's on the agenda for today?"

He grinned wickedly, "Well…" he said, teasing her with his slow pace of revelation.

She smiled and gave him a playful smack, "Oh, come on then! Out with it!"

His smirk grew even wider, "I was _thinking_ of having you learn to fly the TARDIS," her thrilled smile made him grin, "If you're interested," he casually took a sip of his tea while she gave a gasp of excitement.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really," he replied.

"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" she said giddily, running off down the hall towards the console.

"Oi, slow down! You're not fully healed yet!" he called after her as he ruefully shook his head; he'd forgotten what it was like, having children, but teenagers...oh, he was getting too old for this.

The Doctor put down his tea and casually followed after his excitable daughter to the consol room, he leaned back against the wall and said, "Alright, so…somewhere simple…Barcelona?"

Her nose wrinkled, "Oh, no, I'm awful with Spanish."

He laughed, "I didn't mean the city, I meant the planet."

Her eyes glittered at the prospect, "Now _that_ could be fun…"

"Alright then, Barcelona it is!" he said with a manic smile, "So first pull that lever there," he pointed to one on the dash.

"Here?" she asked, pointing at it. The Doctor nodded and the consol began to fade and brighten, increasing Evelyn's adrenaline rush, "Okay, now what?" she asked eagerly.

"That red button there," he said almost carelessly as she went in and pushed it quickly, his eyes widened and he yelled, "No, wait, not _that_ one!" even as the TARDIS shook and the console oscillated dangerously. Evelyn looked over at the Doctor with something akin to terror racing across her features. He attempted to give her a reassuring smile all the while trying to figure out what she had done to cause the ride to be so unusually bumpy, to say the least. Then, just as suddenly as the TARDIS had taken off on her madcap journey, she stopped. The Doctor turned to Evelyn, disarming smile in place, intent upon enticing her to another adventure, however, when he looked at her, his face immediately fell as he heard her ragged shallow breathing and saw her knuckles had turned stark white in their vice grip on the console. He walked over to her and enveloped her in a loose hug and brought her closer to him as her breathing became deeper and more even, ever mindful of her still injured ribs. He felt her melt against him as her head fell forward to rest on his arms, 1etting her breathing lull to pace itself with his.

She regained herself slowly and turned to him and opened her mouth to speak before he cut her off, "Hush, you were fine," he hesitated for a moment before landing a quick kiss on the top of her head, "Now," he said with his trademark face-splitting grin, "Shall we venture into the great unknown or leave it a mystery?"

She looked up at him, meeting the dark brown eyes that were so like her own, the beginnings of a devilish grin on her face, "Oh, venture, most definitely."

"Just what I was thinking," he replied in a wry tone, his coat billowing behind him as if caught in an unseen wind as he walked at a casual pace towards the door. However, for a moment Evelyn simply stood, admiring this incredible man, her father, who was such a myriad of contradictions that all seemed to fit together in the most inexplicable manner.

"Evelyn!" he called over his shoulder.

"Coming!" she returned even as she caught up with his long strides at a run, her long hair bouncing lightly against her back.

"Ready?" he asked with a conspiratorial wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Oh, I was born ready," she replied, matching him in both tone and expression as he swung open the doors to the TARDIS to reveal...

A living room.

The Doctor exited the TARDIS with a confused set to his face as he observed the unobtrusive living room. It wasn't cold, precisely…more like someone had tried very hard to make it warm and inviting but had failed miserably. He looked around…it wasn't unpleasant, exactly, just…well, he couldn't quite place his finger on it. Rather than one large aspect making the room so cold, it was as if a hundred little bits of the room were working together to make it feel off. He slowly meandered back to the TARDIS, gently running his fingertips over its aged blue painted wood.

"Oh, come on now, girl. Why here, eh?" he asked it absently, fingering his sonic screwdriver all the while.

During all the time the Doctor had been waltzing about their oddly average new surroundings, Evelyn had been standing on the threshold of the TARDIS, staring at everything with a fair bit of shock, "Doctor," she murmured, her voice barely above a shocked whisper.

"Not now Evelyn," the Doctor muttered, distracted as he pulled out his glasses and sonic screwdriver and panned about the room, "Now I just need to figure out where we-"

"Doctor," she hissed out again, worried urgency starting to tinge her tone.

"-are," he finished as he continued to scan the room, "Hmm…" he muttered in an interested tone, "It appears that we're on Earth-"

"Da!" she finally bit out in a fit of exasperation, inwardly pleased that he'd finally shut his mouth long enough for her to speak, although it was only because of a moment of shock, she was sure, "I know where we are."

He remained silent, which she took as a cue to continue on.

"We're in my _living room_," she muttered, almost to herself, as she walked onto the oaken floor and turned around in long, languid circles, almost as if she herself didn't quite believe her eyes.

"We-we're…_What_?" the Doctor asked incredulously, "Bu-wha-how…Are you sure?" he finally settled on asking.

Still in a daze, Evelyn nodded, "Yeah, yeah, I'm sure," she murmured quietly as she ran her index finger almost reverently over a small scar in the wood of the mantelpiece, "We moved into this house when I was six," she said, her voice dropping yet another decibel, "When the movers brought the living room furniture in they gouged this massive bit out of it with a chair leg," she crouched down to get a better look at the paneling and ran the back of her hand over a length of it, "Mom was furious. But she found an absolutely brilliant restorer, in retrospect. Look, you can hardly tell that it happened unless you're looking for it," her eyes fell back on the small scar in the wood as she ran her thumb over it, "Except for this tiny bit right here…practically didn't happen."

The Doctor quickly nodded, "Right," he said, "Well, if that's the case, then we have to get out of here. Fast," she looked up at him in confusion and he sighed, "Remember when I told you that I had to force your mother to leave or she would have died?" Evelyn nodded quickly, "Well the reason I had to make her leave still holds weight now and if she sees me and remembers what happened…with us…" he trailed off, "She could still die. Burn up from the inside. So we need to get out of here. Quickly."

She processed it for a moment, nodded and jumped up without a word and began walking towards the TARDIS.

He looked on after her grimly; it was a shame, really. That he would never get to see her and her mother together, with her mother remembering all that they had been through together. The good and the bad…but hopefully mostly the good…

Just then, as both began to walk back to the TARDIS, they whipped around simultaneously at a soft creak from the stairs; deafening in the silence that had enveloped them before. Both sets of dark brown eyes fell on something that would strike terror into all four of their hearts; Donna Noble, just as imposing clad in a bathrobe and slippers as in any other items of clothing.

"Oi!" bit off the redhead frighteningly, "Just what are you two doing in my-_Evelyn_?" she hissed disbelievingly, her eyes narrowing dangerously, "_What_ are you doing here?"

Evelyn's first instinct was to bite off a snarky 'I live here,' but came to her senses just before those potentially fatal words could exit her mouth, after all, she mused, this was her mother, not the most pleasant woman at 4 in the morning. Instead she replied with a much safer sheepish, "Hi, mom."

Her eyes narrowed into still thinner slits, "That still doesn't answer my question," she replied, "At this moment, _you_ are supposed to be sleeping at Gillian's house to go to the beach for your prom weekend tomorrow," she paused to look up at the grandfather clock in the corner, "Well, later today," she muttered to herself, "So then _why_ are you here?" she looked around, "And just _who_," she pointed a long finger at the Doctor, "Is _he_?"

"Well-" Evelyn started to say, trying to buy time to get them out of there, when she heard a loud tramping coming up the stairs from her basement and looked up at her mother with a raised eyebrow.

Donna rolled her eyes, "It's your gran," she said as Sylvia came up the stairs.

'Gran?' Evelyn mouthed at her in shock, "Gran!" she said with and large smile plastered on her face and nerves tingeing her tone as Sylvia entered the room.

"Mum," Donna muttered, halfway between irritation and exasperation.

"_What_ is going on up here?" said Sylvia irritably, "Can't an old woman get her sleep?" she turned and for the first time got a good look at Evelyn and turned to Donna, "What's she doing here?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Donna, her tone exhausted, as she leaned back against the wall, "Oi, don't think that you're getting away, mister," she barked at the Doctor as he tried to unobtrusively slink towards the TARDIS. As he came into the light, Donna looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time, her initial look of annoyance fading into one of shock, "You-you…" she trailed off, falling back onto the stairs, still holding the railing.

Evelyn ran over to her mother and got Donnas' head between her knees. As she carded her fingers through her mothers' hair, she looked up to begin her verbal tirade against the Doctor, but fell silent upon realizing that her gran was doing quite a fine job for her. Evelyn almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

"YOU!" she shouted, a small vein throbbing in her temple as the Doctor flinched before her, "WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO LEAVING HER BE! WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO 'SHE'LL DIE IF SHE SEES ME AGAIN'? HMM?"

"Err…hello, Sylvia!" he said cheerily at a loss for any other words.

Before her grandmother could start shouting again, Evelyn looked up at them perplexedly, "Wait-you _know_ him?"

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair as a force of nervous habit, "Erm-err…Well, Evelyn-"

Sylvia cut him off, rage marking every feature on her face, "You _know_ her?"

Donna sat up, looked the Doctor straight in the eye and whispered hoarsely, "You _know_ them?"

She slowly struggled off the ground and walked over to the Doctor, "John Smith," she murmured reverently, the pad of her thumb unsurely rising to brush his cheekbone, "You haven't aged a day," she whispered in amazement.

Behind her both Evelyn and Sylvia's jaws had dropped, they simultaneously mouthed 'John Smith?' in utter confusion.

Before the Doctor could explain, Donna looked over his shoulder into a darkened corner of the next room and saw the one thing that he had hoped beyond hope she wouldn't see.

The TARDIS.

All three watched helplessly as that one, fateful year of Donnas' life came flooding back.

"Doctor," she said calmly, blandly, as if confirming a suspicion. The calm soon faded however, when her eyes widened and her fists clenched in a rage, "_Doctor_…" she hissed out of tightly clenched teeth.

"Eh…" he muttered, scratching the back of his neck before the enraged redhead in front of him slapped him so had that it left a ringing in his ears, "I suppose I deserved that," he said sheepishly.

This only made her even more infuriated, "_Suppose_? You _suppose_ you deserved that? _You wiped an entire year from my fucking memory you bloody bastard_!"

He looked at her incredulously, "You were going to _die_!"

She glared at him, "You had no right, absolutely no right!"

He pursed his lips and looked at her, "I had every right! You were going to _die_, Donna! I'm not worth that!"

She gave him a sickly sweet smile and said, "Tell me spaceman, had you ever _had_ a biological metacrisis before?"

He looked at her sullenly, "No, but-"

She quickly cut him off, "Had you ever _seen_ a biological metacrisis before?"

"No."

"Then tell me how," she now looked particularly dangerous and the Doctor unconsciously shuffled back a bit, "Would you know what was happening?"

"I-um-eh…"

"Exactly," she replied to his mutterings, her voice soft and cold as she turned around and shuffled up the stairs, "Exactly."

There were a few minutes of awkward silence while the three remaining inhabitants of the room stood stock still and stared at the spot where Donna had stood.

The silence was broken by Evelyn, who, in the stead of having anything better to say, just walked towards the kitchen, looked at her father and grandmother over her shoulder and asked in a tone that revealed what a loss she was at, "Well, tea anyone?"

…

A/N- Rather angsty, I know.


	14. Children By Any Other Name

A/N- Sorry for the long wait! I've really been assembling this chapter in my mind for a while and it just kinda got away from me…but that's another tale…without further ado, chapter 14 of LMLD, Children by Any Other Name.

_-Phillipsville, New Jersey, USA, Earth, May 30th 2028-_

Dawn broke over a small and rather unremarkable town in New Jersey. At 5:30 hundreds of alarm clocks shrilly woke their owners from their individual pleasant slumbers as the minority bounded out of bed relatively happy while the majority groaned, threw pillows over their heads and slapped the snooze button (perhaps a bit too sharply) for ten more minutes rest. Outside, the first birds could be heard singing in the trees, squirrels slowly began to hunt out their mornings' sustenance and dew that would disappear all too soon slid down a virgin leaf lit only by the pale and watery sunlight. Inside the tastefully decorated kitchen of a modestly sized brick and wooden structure with an immaculately manicured lawn sat three people, all lost in their own thoughts.

The youngest of the three, Evelyn, stared forlornly down into her steaming ceramic cup of tea and idly turned it in slow circles while an incredible despondence radiated from her every movement. She looked up disinterestedly at her father, who stood at the light wooden countertop, leaning most of his weight against it while he stared intently into the dregs of his tea. Even having known him for only a few hours, she knew better than to interrupt him while he was so deep in thought. Slowly, almost heavily, she turned her head to look across the oval oaken table at her gran. Sylvia was uncharacteristically quiet, her lips clasped in a firm white line, her face and body tense with pent up emotion. Evelyn wondered if she should take away the tea cup before Sylvia hurled it at the Doctor.

On the one hand, it would make a terrible mess.

On the other, he thoroughly deserved it.

She supposed that she was being unfair. After all, she'd been incredibly protective of her mother since her parents had divorced…and no wonder considering the way that insidious bastard had treated. He'd always worked late, but to her knowledge his job description had never included banging the interns out of their bloody minds. It was never that Daniel didn't love her anymore that really fazed her mother, Evelyn had surmised over the years…no, by the age of twelve she had gathered that her mother had never really cared for him all that much…it was the fact that he didn't respect her enough to divorce her properly before chasing after some considerably younger bimbo. She was only eleven at the time, but Evelyn had been her mother's lifeline during those first few tumultuous weeks of the quick and messy divorce. Evelyn heaved a mental sigh; thankfully, Daniel had decided to pursue greener pastures back in London. A decision which left Donna with the house and full custody of Evelyn, along with a pair of hefty alimony and child support checks to boot.

She had, to put it crudely, cleaned up.

As per the custody agreement, Evelyn had only to spend a blessedly brief if painfully awkward two weeks with Daniel in the middle of August, which this year she was thankfully allowed to forego if favor of packing for college. Although now even that was completely up in the air…

Her hands tightened around the tea cup as the pace of her breathing quickened. Her mind shot down the tunnel that was the only thing she could see and she felt herself going places that she never went if she could help it. Her eyes widened and she chocked down a high pitched scream in her throat…she felt it…the net was starting to unravel…the fall was imminent and the cold, hard ground was rising up to meet her…

Meanwhile, Sylvia's glared at the Doctor and she hurled her teacup at him with surprising speed for a woman of her age. The Doctor managed to duck just in time as the cup smashed against the wall in the spot where his head had been a moment prior, the loud smash bringing Evelyn out of her vision with a short gasp and a brief shiver as she tucked her arms around her, the room suddenly too cold for her liking. Her grans' shrill voice as she went in for a second round of chewing out her father was tuned out by years of practice. Her eyes wearily swept the kitchen as she mentally dug through the cabinets for the dustpan. She slowly eased herself up from the table and walked over to the cabinet nearest the door. She opened the door and rummaged past a coat and a handbag to reach the dustpan as she closed the door with her sneakered foot, perhaps making it slam a bit harder than really was necessary.

Evelyn walked over to the counter and wedged herself behind her father and swept the shattered ceramic into the pan and dumped it into the garbage bin unceremoniously. They both stared at her dumbly, like they had quite forgotten she was there…in fact, she wouldn't be shocked if they had indeed forgotten that she was there.

She placed the dustpan on the countertop with practiced delicacy, just as slowly placed one hand on her hip and drummed her red fingernails against the beaten copper coolly while she looked back at her relatives with an impassive expression.

"Yes?" she asked in the overly calm, purposefully unnerving voice that she had learned first hand from her mother. 'The Voice', as she thought of it in her head, had the desired effect; her gran was now biting her lip and her eyes darted about the kitchen whilst her father was looking at his converse with a thoroughly embarrassed expression.

She didn't wait for a verbal response. Her impassive look intensified into a glare, "No better than children, the pair of you, I swear," she continued, with a hint of exasperation seeping into her voice, she continued with her stern look, while inwardly she lamented the fact that she didn't wear glasses…what she had lovingly christened 'The Look' would have been so much more terrifying over a pair of glasses…

Evelyn heaved an inward sigh, she supposed that it was time to wrap this up, although she did reap a sick glee from the discomfort the she was currently causing, "Now," she said in a tone that was vastly more authoritative than she felt, "We are going upstairs- And I don't want any whining about it!" she barked as her father opened his mouth lamely.

"But-" he tried fruitlessly as she glared him down.

"Well what was your plan, _Daddy_?" she cut in sarcastically, "Just avoid each other for an eternity?" as she said this, another thought drifted into her head, an awful thought…but she shut it out quickly…no, it wouldn't happen, it couldn't, she wouldn't let it…one father had already left her, she wouldn't let another.

She proceeded to walk purposefully towards the stairs and turned to make sure her father and grandmother were following her. As she went towards her mothers' bedroom she sent up a little prayer to any god that was listening, 'Please,' she prayed, 'I know that it sounds childish, but please let me have a whole family…let them at least get along…please, please…'

Little did Evelyn know that her father had a little mantra that had been playing in his head all night, ever since he met Evelyn, ever since she was conceived, hell, ever since Gallifrey went up in flames, it had changed over the centuries, but tonight he thought, over and over again, 'Let her love me, let her love me, I've already lost so much, please just let me have this, Rassilon, just let me have this…'

.....

Potter fans!- Hey! If you're into HGDM or HGSS I'm plugging the lovely writer I beta for, pobrediabla, check some of her fics out here on !

Anyone Reading!- Reveiws are highly appriciated! I love hearing what my readers think of my fics, as I think that it makes me a better writer. Reveiws are especially appriciated now as I do need something to pull me out of my back to school doldroms! ;)

Lots of love and best wishes,

GM


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